Is G5 really that bad?

[CastletonSnob 3,025]

Is G5 really as bad as people say it is? It just feels aggressively average to me.

[Sparklefan1234 161,870]

I love the characters but I feel like the stories peaked with the debut movie. 

[Tacodidra 59,795]

I guess it depends on the person. I prefer G4 and probably always will, but G5 has been enjoyable for the most part.

Everything new seems to be somewhat divisive in the fandom now... But at least it has got a better reception than Pony Life did.

[Evil Pink One 12,983]

Yes its bad..........

[Megas 27,064]

It's fine. I think it peaked with the movie which isn't....good. But at the same time nothing has been actively bad and I do find myself watching it from time to time. It's just kinda boring more often than not and doesn't have that charm G4 had. During the height of FiM from S1-5, I was picking up the next episode every chance I got, meanwhile I still haven't seen Winter Wishday nor have I seen a good chunk of TYT. I just don't have the drive to watch it like I did with FiM.

If nothing else, I'd still take it over most of FiM's latter half, however, if I had to choose between G5 and Pony Life, I'm most likely picking Pony Life

[Metemponychosis 1,236]

It's okay. It just has big shoes to fit in some more demanding people's eyes.

To me, the biggest problem was trying to cling to G4. It really kills it for me when it's so generic and souless.

[Evil Pink One 12,983]

Fine its 10% good and 90% bad....

[Dark Qiviut 22,173]

No. Not all of Tell Your Tale is that good, but it's serviceable for a good laugh when done right.

ANG followed by Make Your Mark's chapters are the series's bread and butter. So far, it's more good than bad, and they haven't done anything bad here, per se.

Now, is G5 better than G4? I'm leaning "no." But G5 is fine in its own right.

[Misty Shadow 7,084]

We can do this until the end of time if you want, no. Don't care how many times I have to say it, people need to be less critical of it. Bronies have never been good at being self-aware of the kind of show they love to criticize so much, and that lack of self-awareness has gotten way, WAY worse with the debut of this new generation. They don't even get the point of it, they can't let FiM go, they just want FiM cloned in their image. I have not seen ONE well-grounded argument explaining how anything from G5 is worse than fine. I just keep seeing the same spiel about how it "broke the lore", how Tell Your Tale's animation is cheap, how the plots are "childish" to them, how there are phones in it, and how there's toilet humor in TYT. I've beaten into the ground about how this is a young kids show and how MLP was never lore-heavy, so how about something new?

I've been watching a lot of the internet's favorite young kids show lately, Bluey. Bluey is aimed at an even younger audience, has cheap animation, has a lot of "childish" plots with episodes focusing on Bluey wanting to entertain herself with kiddy games and the grown-ups going to absurd lengths to play along with those kiddy games, has smartphones and tablets, and A LOT of toilet humor. But I'm supposed to love Bluey and hate G5 because the internet said so, sure. Yeah, that's another thing, I am sick of people acting like these "problems" aren't just standard practice for kids shows. And do you really think the kids are unhappy with G5, "not falling" for the supposed pandering? Do you know what the most popular TYT episode of this year has been so far? 

https://www.youtube.com/@MLPTYTEnglish/videos

YES. The kids love what so many adult fans consider to be the worst episode of the series. What does this tell you? The views expressed by the overly critical (and to be brutally honest, normally critical) part of our fandom DO NOT reflect the views of the general consensus. It is time for us to mature, stop being so bitter about something that is making people happy, and move forward. 

Edited May 18, 2023 by CloudMistDragon
Very minor correction.

[The Recherche 29,965]

Hardly. However, I am comfortable saying that, if it wanted to succeed FiM, it did a fairly poor job. Nothing has crossed the territory into outright abysmal or offensive, but that's a fairly low bar to set. It stands on its own as a decent series for its target audience, but it never really rises far above that, from what I have seen thus far. It is why I fell off the train for it, really. It's acceptable, but I simply do not have a large surplus of time for merely 'acceptable' things any longer. Generation 5 was never really going to be able to capture that lightning in a bottle again though, so I am not particularly distraught about it, nor do I hold that against it.

14 minutes ago, CloudMistDragon said:

We can do this until the end of time if you want, no. Don't care how many times I have to say it, people need to be less critical of it. Bronies have never been good at being self-aware of the kind of show they love to criticize so much, and that lack of self-awareness has gotten way, WAY worse with the debut of this new generation. They don't even get the point of it, they can't let FiM go, they just want FiM cloned in their image.

I think the issue is that many fans actually did want to let FiM go. Now, I am indeed ignorant of what 'official' MLP fans and critics say, but everything I saw leading up to Gen 5 was people saying that they hope it does not borrow from FiM too much, or cling to it too hard. This seems to have gotten a bit better with time, but Generation 4 elements are still very present in this series as well, and they make it difficult to view G5 entirely on its own merits. The series could have ignored G4 to create something entirely new, which would have no doubt earned it ire as well, but the fact that G4 is so interlinked with G5 makes it much more fair to compared the two, in my eyes. if it did not want to be compared to G4, it should not have borrowed from it so heavily, or tied its plot to it. This rule has reasonable limitations of course, but broadly speaking, people will have expectations of something when it has a name they are familiar with, whether or not their preconceived idea of it is fair or accurate. Especially when the new thing references the old thing on more than one occasion.

Now, I absolutely do agree that bronies are frequently very anal about peculiar things that often do not matter. I do not like the smartphones in G5 myself, but they are not the kind of thing that will break the series' back, if we are to be fair. Nitpicks and person grievances have indeed been glorified and given far too much importance by, say, 'Opinion-Havers' on the internet.

[Misty Shadow 7,084]

1 hour ago, The Recherche said:

I think the issue is that many fans actually did want to let FiM go. Now, I am indeed ignorant of what 'official' MLP fans and critics say, but everything I saw leading up to Gen 5 was people saying that they hope it does not borrow from FiM too much, or cling to it too hard.

Many fans were incredibly quick to throw G5 under the bus after the shows came out, even going as far as to pretend that FiM was "perfect" after they went scorched earth on the last two seasons of FiM. There are also still people who want more G4 content, despite literally everything that we had been saying for like, forever, about not wanting the show to go on for too long and go downhill (which it already did in the eyes of many fans). #SaveMLP is still a thing too, and their joke movement of trying to cancel G5 and bring back FiM for a "proper ending" predates the debut of the G5 shows. 

Edited May 18, 2023 by CloudMistDragon

[CastletonSnob 3,025]

MLP: FiM was the definition of lightning in a bottle. The show's popularity was a perfect storm of the right people working on it, coming out at a time when cartoons were at a low point, and capturing the internet's attention. The internet was a VERY different place in 2010.

[AlbaTross 1,581]

Eh...I've said my piece many times over, so I'll try to be concise.  TL:DR, it's not horrible, but for the most part, it's not that fantastic either, though it would have likely received far less hate if it wasn't built on the corpse of G4.  Had it just been allowed to be its own thing, very little about it would be different IMHO, but it wouldn't have upset people by being a giant middle finger to fans of G4.  Heck, a few references, and a Twilight cameo would likely have been all that would be lost had these two series not been linked, and it could have been pretty much exactly the same otherwise.  I'm able to get over this particular issue by cultivating a headcanon that G5 is an offshoot universe based on events of Season 9 of FiM playing out a bit differently, thanks in no small part to MYM itself giving me a pretty significant building block for that, but it seems to me as though G5 wasn't originally written to have anything to do with G4, only for a last minute executive decision to be made to link the two, likely because the producers of the new series weren't confident it could do as well on its own.  

As for the quality of the series, well, to put it bluntly, it does not hold a candle to G4.  I don't think it's really the fault of the writers as there are some good writers on staff, and I do see some effort here and there that suggests G5 isn't a completely soulless cash grab, and there are people who are genuinely invested in trying to deliver a good product.  I do think Hasbro themselves are the lion's share of the problems with the series, as I really get the sense that they're the ones who are trying to maximize profit with little care for the product.  But yeah, the writing isn't nearly on the same level that it was in G4, while the characters aren't inherently bad they're underdeveloped both in terms of character arcs and the chemistry they share with the others.  Let's not get started with the pacing.  G4 never drew out a single villain arc like G5 is. The majority of songs are subpar pop ballads.  Visually, both G5 series are adequate, I suppose, but aren't anything special IMHO, with FiM somehow managing to be a better looking 2D series than TYT in spite of the former being made with software from 2010.  

Outside of the show itself, splitting G5 into two series to try and simultaneously reach the Netflix and YouTube crowds really doesn't help.  For one, it makes the series more of a mess to follow than it needs to be, and while I can't entirely blame Hasbro for having difficulty riding the wave of changing viewing habits, I can say they're certainly not making the transition to the streaming format very smoothly.  Moreover, the release schedule really doesn't help with engagement.  MYM releases are slow, and when they do come out, I view them in a few sittings and then there's nothing for a long while.  TYT is the more consistent series of the two, but five minutes of content that now only comes every two weeks is difficult to really get that invested in.  I used to get up on Saturday mornings to watch livestreams of FiM episodes when they aired; not so with G5, where I'll typically check out the posting of new TYT episodes here sometime within a few days, and MYM releases sometime within the first couple weeks of them going up on Netflix.  Unlike FiM which was out of season for half the year, G5 content is year round, but maybe that also makes it feel less special.  The production schedule has likely had a negative impact of the pacing of the series from a story perspective too.  

With all that said, G5 is at least mildly entertaining, and mostly harmless and inoffensive.  It's definitely not the kind of series I would be watching right now were I not already a Brony, and even the ANG movie wouldn't have turned me into one.  However, as someone who will take new pony content, G5 does its job adequately.  As far as attempts at trying (and failing miserably) to capture lightning in a bottle once again, I noped pretty quickly out of Pony Life, and I'm still watching G5, so I guess it's doing something right?  Also, since this exists, I guess there is hope for G5: 

That cut also does away with the dialogue interruptions in the episode, and just gives us the song, which is of the Ingram quality that I miss from G4.  I wouldn't mind if we got tracks like this one more often, and if the same quality that went into this song (and the short as whole TBH) went into all aspects of the series on a consistent basis, including elements such as the writing and characters, perhaps G5 could be something special in its own right.  I somehow doubt it, but hey, I'd love to be proven wrong.  Regardless, G5 has at least proven to me that it can sometimes have glimmers of brilliance, even if they're rare.  No, I do not think G5 is meritless, and I do think it still has potential.  Whether that potential is realized...well, that's really up to Hasbro, and I somehow doubt they are to be trusted at this point to add the polish this series needs, but I have gotten a glimpse of the series I think G5 should be, and I'm impressed that we got anything of this quality.  Now, if only we could get this quality all the time.  

[CastletonSnob 3,025]

1 hour ago, AlbaTross said:

Eh...I've said my piece many times over, so I'll try to be concise.  TL:DR, it's not horrible, but for the most part, it's not that fantastic either, though it would have likely received far less hate if it wasn't built on the corpse of G4.  Had it just been allowed to be its own thing, very little about it would be different IMHO, but it wouldn't have upset people by being a giant middle finger to fans of G4.  Heck, a few references, and a Twilight cameo would likely have been all that would be lost had these two series not been linked, and it could have been pretty much exactly the same otherwise.  I'm able to get over this particular issue by cultivating a headcanon that G5 is an offshoot universe based on events of Season 9 of FiM playing out a bit differently, thanks in no small part to MYM itself giving me a pretty significant building block for that, but it seems to me as though G5 wasn't originally written to have anything to do with G4, only for a last minute executive decision to be made to link the two, likely because the producers of the new series weren't confident it could do as well on its own.  

As for the quality of the series, well, to put it bluntly, it does not hold a candle to G4.  I don't think it's really the fault of the writers as there are some good writers on staff, and I do see some effort here and there that suggests G5 isn't a completely soulless cash grab, and there are people who are genuinely invested in trying to deliver a good product.  I do think Hasbro themselves are the lion's share of the problems with the series, as I really get the sense that they're the ones who are trying to maximize profit with little care for the product.  But yeah, the writing isn't nearly on the same level that it was in G4, while the characters aren't inherently bad they're underdeveloped both in terms of character arcs and the chemistry they share with the others.  Let's not get started with the pacing.  G4 never drew out a single villain arc like G5 is. The majority of songs are subpar pop ballads.  Visually, both G5 series are adequate, I suppose, but aren't anything special IMHO, with FiM somehow managing to be a better looking 2D series than TYT in spite of the former being made with software from 2010.  

Outside of the show itself, splitting G5 into two series to try and simultaneously reach the Netflix and YouTube crowds really doesn't help.  For one, it makes the series more of a mess to follow than it needs to be, and while I can't entirely blame Hasbro for having difficulty riding the wave of changing viewing habits, I can say they're certainly not making the transition to the streaming format very smoothly.  Moreover, the release schedule really doesn't help with engagement.  MYM releases are slow, and when they do come out, I view them in a few sittings and then there's nothing for a long while.  TYT is the more consistent series of the two, but five minutes of content that now only comes every two weeks is difficult to really get that invested in.  I used to get up on Saturday mornings to watch livestreams of FiM episodes when they aired; not so with G5, where I'll typically check out the posting of new TYT episodes here sometime within a few days, and MYM releases sometime within the first couple weeks of them going up on Netflix.  Unlike FiM which was out of season for half the year, G5 content is year round, but maybe that also makes it feel less special.  The production schedule has likely had a negative impact of the pacing of the series from a story perspective too.  

With all that said, G5 is at least mildly entertaining, and mostly harmless and inoffensive.  It's definitely not the kind of series I would be watching right now were I not already a Brony, and even the ANG movie wouldn't have turned me into one.  However, as someone who will take new pony content, G5 does its job adequately.  As far as attempts at trying (and failing miserably) to capture lightning in a bottle once again, I noped pretty quickly out of Pony Life, and I'm still watching G5, so I guess it's doing something right?  Also, since this exists, I guess there is hope for G5: 

That cut also does away with the dialogue interruptions in the episode, and just gives us the song, which is of the Ingram quality that I miss from G4.  I wouldn't mind if we got tracks like this one more often, and if the same quality that went into this song (and the short as whole TBH) went into all aspects of the series on a consistent basis, including elements such as the writing and characters, perhaps G5 could be something special in its own right.  I somehow doubt it, but hey, I'd love to be proven wrong.  Regardless, G5 has at least proven to me that it can sometimes have glimmers of brilliance, even if they're rare.  No, I do not think G5 is meritless, and I do think it still has potential.  Whether that potential is realized...well, that's really up to Hasbro, and I somehow doubt they are to be trusted at this point to add the polish this series needs, but I have gotten a glimpse of the series I think G5 should be, and I'm impressed that we got anything of this quality.  Now, if only we could get this quality all the time.  

Hasbro is, let's be honest, kind of incompetent as a company. The quality of G4 was a complete fluke. The MLP franchise was at an all-time low point because of G3.5, and Hasbro was willing to hand their next iteration off to anyone who wanted it. That anyone just happened to be Lauren Faust, who worked on PowerPuff Girls and Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends, and loved MLP growing up. I doubt Hasbro even consciously hired Faust to work on G4. I wouldn't be surprised if they just took names out of a hat to decide who to give MLP to.

Edited May 18, 2023 by CastletonSnob

[AlbaTross 1,581]

On 2023-05-18 at 4:55 AM, CastletonSnob said:

Hasbro is, let's be honest, kind of incompetent as a company. The quality of G4 was a complete fluke. The MLP franchise was at an all-time low point because of G3.5, and Hasbro was willing to hand their next iteration off to anyone who wanted it. That anyone just happened to be Lauren Faust, who worked on PowerPuff Girls and Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends, and loved MLP growing up. I doubt Hasbro even consciously hired Faust to work on G4. I wouldn't be surprised if they just took names out of a hat to decide who to give MLP to.

Ah yes, we do have an example of just how soulless a product could be created in the name of profit.  At least G5 is infinitely better than G3/3.5.  Actually, by MLP standards, I guess FiM is an outlier, and G5 is actually also on the above average side, not that the bar for that is very high.  G5 just has the unfortunate issue of following up one of the best shows of the 2010s, which wouldn't be an easy task for even the best shows.  

[Nightfall Gloam 18,236]

The 2021 Netflix movie was fantastic! A great introduction to the Mane Five and present-day 'Equestria' (honestly I do just prefer to view G5 Equestria as its own separate thing, even if its supposed to be G4 Equestria but in the future)

After that though, I really wanted to like G5 more, and I'm not sure if I've just gotten too cynical, or if its genuine issues with both MYM and TYT in particular (haven't looked at the G5 comics as of yet) but I just can't quite enjoy it nearly as much as I could with FiM. I'm just not anywhere near as hyped for new chapters of the Netflix series as I was with new episodes of FiM (seriously, I used to stay up real late in my time zone to watch MLP episodes live with the rest of the fandom, its the only show that ever happened with!), and I kinda stopped watching the YouTube series about 30 episodes in. May do another catch up at some point though.

So far, with the exception of the movie, G5 has just felt like it leaves a lot to be desired to me. I knew going in it wasn't going to be "the same" as FiM, and I do enjoy watching the Mane Five, but, for some reason, and I can't put my finger on it, it just doesn't appeal to me anywhere near as much as G4 did, though I'm willing to see if it gets any better throughout its run.

[Guest]

Not really. I think since G5 is considered as a sequel and connected to G4, people have really unrealistic expectations. I think when people heard G5 was coming out and that some leaks mentioned it was connected to G4, people got way too excited and expected the same quality that G4 had, but it was incomparable. Then childhood nostalgia caused a small minority of the fandom that wanted another series like G4 to throw a temper tantrum online. I saw hate posts and videos on twitter, youtube and instagram at the end of last year about G5. A majority of the teams behind production and writing are different and there are different business models that they are following as well. I have heard that they had some returning members from the writing teams/animators to G5, but I haven't seen any major changes come across yet...so those are just rumors until they happen. G4 was really something special that will be impossible to replicate due to the unique time of the internet expansions at the end of the 2000s and early 2010s. By the time G4 was in its last few seasons, it was nowhere the mass media popularity it had in it's early years.

The G5 debut movie was nice and sweet, but TYT & MYM were initially lackluster until the past few months where it has been picking up. People are starting to warm up to G5 as well and realizing that it's not the same series, but its own wonderful little thing. I think once some people stop comparing it to G4, they will realize that it's pretty fun. Funny enough, I remember months back seeing posts from over a decade ago on other sites mentioning that G4 was terrible and that it was destroying the MLP franchise in comparison to the previous generations LOL History repeats itself interestingly enough.

Hopefully this doesn't age bad, but I think this generation is going to start flourishing a lot more soon.

[AlbaTross 1,581]

On 2023-05-20 at 5:32 AM, Nightfall Gloam said:

 I'm just not anywhere near as hyped for new chapters of the Netflix series as I was with new episodes of FiM (seriously, I used to stay up real late in my time zone to watch MLP episodes live with the rest of the fandom, its the only show that ever happened with!), and I kinda stopped watching the YouTube series about 30 episodes in. 

You must live in a different region from me, but I get what you mean as I used to have to get up early to watch the new FiM episodes, and on a Saturday to boot, and I'm far from a morning person.  However, FiM had me so hooked I was willing to make the effort for it, for the just under half the year that a FiM season ran each year.  If someone were to interrupt me during that sacred time, it could sour my whole week.  Good times.  No, I do not feel the need to do that with G5 episodes as it just isn't the same for more reasons than one.  

I wasn't able to put my finger on it for a while, but if you've seen one of my many previous posts of length, including the one in this very discussion, I very much can now.  I do very much want to like G5, and I want to like G5 for G5.  I do think it has its good moments, and there are ways in which I think it could be a decent series in its own right, but I do think many decisions made by Hasbro are preventing it from living up to...what it can still potentially be if the right choices are made going forward, but I'm not holding my breath on it.  

On 2023-05-20 at 9:26 AM, thecoolerglimmer said:

Hopefully this doesn't age bad, but I think this generation is going to start flourishing a lot more soon.

I think that's very much going to hinge on MYM Chapter 4, and how the last episodes of the first (and very elongated) season of TYT play out.  It's still a ways off yet, but is approaching slowly but surely, and there will indeed be a hiatus for TYT.  TYT going down to once every two weeks really isn't helping its momentum, but at the very least that's somewhat offset by it continuing year round vs the much longer and weekly FiM, which only ran for slightly less than half of a given year.  

I will say I'm kind of starting to get G5, somewhat.  To use a metaphor, as a board game guy I have plenty of games with fantasy, horror and sci-fi themes, but then I have games like Dandelion and Sequoia, which are kind of nothing games but simple and enjoyable in their own right for a quick, bite-sized experience.  I think G5 is the show equivalent of the latter kind of experience, or at least, I think it's at its best when it is that.  When it tries to be more than that...it's largely hit and miss, with a lot of misses.  There are certainly exceptions such as the previously mentioned TYT episode 50 and its accompanying song, but by and large, G5 works best IMHO as a nothing series, and I don't mean that in a bad way.  Of course going from an exciting fantasy-based series to something more mundane was always going to be problematic, but I think the problems people have with G5 are more than just that, and there are legit things that bring down the overall experience.  Still, credit where it is due, and being a nothing kind of series can work if done right, which this series can kind of pull off at times.  

[PrincessBonBon12 26]

I actually like it a lot. I was worried about the digital animation, but they really came through. I love the new cast, particularly Izzy Moon Bow and Zipp, but they're all great. I like the songs a lot, and the humore feels authentic, not like super meme oriented. I can't wait for more of it. I love the toys so far too.

[Landi 597]

I wouldn't say G5 is terrible, but it is the epitome of mediocre in my opinion. The stories are basic and the characters just aren't written well for me to get all that invested in them. Misty is basically carrying the whole generation as far as characters go. Still, G5 is definitely not the worst MLP has seen. 

[HeebieJeebies 23]

No.

That's Spanish for no.

[Ace dash 7]

No of course not i mean it has some minor flaws but its  not bad

[PrincessBonBon12 26]

The one thing I don't really like is how much time they spend on their phones. Like it's "My Little Pony", not "My Little Phone-y". They should use magic to communicate, or something interesting. Other than that though, I am loving G5. 

[sweetolebob18 724]

I used to get off work about when the G1/G2 show was being broadcast on network TV. I'd watch it & go to bed.

IMO, G5 is about that level. Better than G3.

[Savygriffs 5,022]

No of course not, shoot I'd say I'm more into it than G4 right now. Sure it's not perfect, but neither was G4, especially in the early seasons.

 

Gotta remember G5 is still young, and needs time to really grow.

Edited May 31, 2023 by Savy