S01:E01+E02 - Friendship is Magic

[CypherHoof 26,482]

3 minutes ago, MuddyHooves said:

I hope the finale ties to this episode in some way.

Not sure why you would want that?

[MuddyHooves 0]

Just now, CypherHoof said:

Not sure why you would want that?

As in, have the series end with a storybook closing. Or something to that effect.

[CypherHoof 26,482]

Just now, MuddyHooves said:

As in, have the series end with a storybook closing. Or something to that effect.

Would rather they left it open - so that they can return to G4 if they choose to later. G4 has been a rare phenomenon few other series can claim - star trek, dr who and so forth all have dedicated and specific fanbases, that are a good source of recurring revenue for merchandise and brand licencing, and the "brony" community is such a global fanbase. Never a good move to kill a golden goose unless you are SURE you can replace it.

[Rushing cash 836]

The episode that started it all, the episode that established the setting for the series, it was a very to make this episode good and I think they did it pretty good, I mean if so many people kept watching the show after watching this then it did its job. It wasn't perfect by a long stretch, some parts felt really cheesy and a bit too silly to me(especially what happened in the everfree forest like pinkies test and raritys, it was honestly hard to watch for me) and NM was not a very thrilling villain although I loved her back story(I consider her relation to luna like that of hyde to jeckyle, she is part of luna that turned to a real pony when she raised the moon with the intent to take over equestria for herself and make eternal night and couldn't break free). Twilights interaction with the other 5 and their interaction with each other(plus the world they set) was very interesting and diverse and I just wanted to watch more of it. 7\10. 

From the very first moment the show showed me it was not what I was expecting, the story was engaging and that was the most important job the pilot had to deliver and it delivered.

    

[SunburstRainbow2019 3]

First time seeing this episode, I thought too myself "Eh, this series might be boring. Screw the dare that I got from another forum, I ain't gonna watch this."  (won't say what forum cause it's closed down now), but AFTER watching the first 2 episodes, I just smiled and said "Huh, maybe this won't be too bad after all.

 

~ Starburst

[Lucky Bolt 35,062]

I remember when I first really got into g4 it wasn't until the start of season 4 but I went back to watch these two episodes because I wanted to binge watch every previous season starting with 1. After I watched the first two episodes that started it all I was officially hooked.

*sigh* Good memories. 

[Jedishy 3,548]

So as part of our Mareathon I want to ask the following. 

Where do you think Princess Celestia went during this time? 

After so many years are there things you noticed before that you did not the first time? 

What do you think made Twilight connect to the rest of the mane six that did not exist with her friends? 

[Emerald Claus 24,848]

@Jedishy

One thing I DID notice about the part one of the premiere is when Applejack shoves a Granny Smith apple into Twilight's mouth, she spits it out later and it's a red apple instead. Also, did Twilight even chew that thing? Because it was just shoved in her mouth, I didn't notice her eating it. 

Also, what do you mean by your second question? Wasn't Celestia in the castle?

Edited March 1, 2020 by Emerald Heart

[Jedishy 3,548]

4 minutes ago, Emerald Heart said:

Also, what do you mean by your second question? Wasn't Celestia in the castle?

No. Remember she disappeared when Nightmare Moon appeared. She was not in the castle and she shows up from outside a window with the sunrise 
 

Spoiler

 

So where do you think she was? Do you think this was Twilight's first test? 
I personally feel that she was testing Twilight as she knew the Elements were not responding to her when she used them for attack and not healing. 

[Pentium100 2,120]

11 minutes ago, Jedishy said:

Where do you think Princess Celestia went during this time? 

Hiding, she probably was testing Twilight and could have intervened if there was a problem. That or she hoped that Twilight would succeed and if Twilight failed, Nightmare Moon would have won.

12 minutes ago, Jedishy said:

After so many years are there things you noticed before that you did not the first time? 

What I didn't notice the first time I watched was how Twilight got bad first impressions of her future best friends. Well, or how I would have gotten bad first impressions of them if I was in her place. I also came to the conclusion that if I was in Twilight's place (with her abilities etc), Equestria would be hailing its new ruler, Nightmare Moon.

13 minutes ago, Jedishy said:

What do you think made Twilight connect to the rest of the mane six that did not exist with her friends? 

I do not really have an idea, if I was in her place, I would not have liked any of her future best friends based on the first impressions. Let's see:
1. Pinkie Pie just gasps and runs away.
2. Applejack essentially force feeds her. So, first impression - pushy.
3. Rainbow Dash crashes into her, getting her muddy, then dumps an entire cloud on her, then messes up her mane in an attempt to dry it. Stupid.
4. Rarity drops the decorations and instead forces Twilight to try some clothes, taking up her time. So, also pushy.
5. Fluttershy was probably the only "good" first impression. Though she referred to Spike as a "talking dragon", can't all dragons talk? Though I guess Fluttershy being terrified of them means she did not approach one so may not know if a dragon can talk. 

And then there was the surprise party. Well, surprise parties must be an American thing, so I'll let it slide. The concept seems stupid to me, but whatever.

Then, after Nightmare Moon appears, those 5 ponies accuse Twilight of working with her, though only briefly and accompany her to the forest. And here Applejack gives a second bad impression - couldn't she just tell Twilight that the two flying ponies are ready to catch her, instead of "trust me and let go"? I mean she showed the she was the Element of Honesty with that. Right. More like the Element of Getting Blind Trust or the Element of Pushyness.

Manticore with a thorn in it's paw - I don't think it would have jumped around that much trying to catch the ponies with that. I mena stepping on that thorn repeatedly had to hurt a lot.

And Celestia still was stupid for organizing all of this. OK, let's assume that she knew the other elements and specifically arranged to Twilight to meet them. Still, she put Twilight in harms way (Nightmare Moon could have just killed her or one of the other Elements on the spot, Twilight could have fallen to her death in the forest etc) and Twilight is not a trained for combat and survival (as opposed to, say, soldiers or firefighters). I wonder if the ad for Celestia's school says that if you do really well in school, you get to fight enemies that are too dangerous for the military ponies... Well, unless it was all an act and Celestia was closely watching this and would have saved Twilight or on of the other elements from harm.

[Pastel Heart 6,466]

I'd definitely say it's weird that Celestia was like nowhere~ this lines up with Laurens tweet where she spilled the beans. I guess they really did plan this stuff ahead of time George Lucas style; pretty neat!

Revisiting this again was really nostalgic and surreal. I didn't notice anything super new because I was kinda lost in it; I remember several screenshots in these first three eps from the early days. Applebloom is adorbs.

As for Twilight getting along with them better; I think the chemistry and coming together during a crisis helped. The relationship she has with the mane 6 as compared to her old friends in Canterlot is that she's not being dragged into superficial relationships: ie. "Friends" that just hang out just for the sake of it or they share a place of study or work "oh lets have this party" "come to the mall" that sorta thing. What they have is what I'd call real, genuine bonds 

[Pentium100 2,120]

51 minutes ago, Pastel-chan said:

The relationship she has with the mane 6 as compared to her old friends in Canterlot is that she's not being dragged into superficial relationships: ie. "Friends" that just hang out just for the sake of it or they share a place of study or work "oh lets have this party" "come to the mall" that sorta thing. What they have is what I'd call real, genuine bonds 

Yeah, they went through danger together, that would help making the friendship stronger than usual, even after the possibly bad first impressions and the ponies not having that much in common other than their adventure.

[Twilight Luna 31,340]

11 hours ago, Jedishy said:

Where do you think Princess Celestia went during this time? 

I think that Celestia either went into hiding or NMM trapped trapped her in something before deciding what to do with her. 

11 hours ago, Jedishy said:

After so many years are there things you noticed before that you did not the first time? 

The only thing that I really noticed was that the stars around the moons sparkled before NMM escaped. 

11 hours ago, Jedishy said:

What do you think made Twilight connect to the rest of the mane six that did not exist with her friends? 

That’s a hard one to answer. Through their quest to the find the elements, Twilight saw genuine qualities in them and they were there for her when she needed them. From the flashbacks, they were already friends before Twilight arrived. I’m not sure what Twilight added to the mix that was different than was already there except that she was smart.

[CypherHoof 26,482]

One thing I noticed on rewatching (not this time, but a previous rewatch) was that the CMC are all together when NMM appears.

Sorta doesn't jibe with them "meeting" some episodes later.

(and of course the thing with NMM in the hourglass during the bookhorse's booksearch, but everyone notices that :D)

Animation error (there are six Element globes in the castle when seen from behind, but the girls only lift five to the ground) and of course anti-error (Derpy has normal eyes in the first episode)

Edited March 1, 2020 by CypherHoof

[ExplosionMare 18,062]

2 hours ago, CypherHoof said:

One thing I noticed on rewatching (not this time, but a previous rewatch) was that the CMC are all together when NMM appears.

Sorta doesn't jibe with them "meeting" some episodes later.

(and of course the thing with NMM in the hourglass during the bookhorse's booksearch, but everyone notices that :D)

Animation error (there are six Element globes in the castle when seen from behind, but the girls only lift five to the ground) and of course anti-error (Derpy has normal eyes in the first episode)

The CMC were probably just huddling together without thinking. Most likely it was a situation where all the kids wanted to huddle up together

[CypherHoof 26,482]

1 minute ago, ExplosionMare said:

The CMC were probably just huddling together without thinking. Most likely it was a situation where all the kids wanted to huddle up together

Except "all the kids" were exactly those three, despite there being an entire classroom full of kids at the school, in their age group alone?

That seems an even greater coincidence?

[Dabmanz 2,139]

The first two episodes are a great introduction to the mane sixes personalities 

Also I think Celestia was watching from a distance but not getting to close to make it obvious.

As for the reason they connected so well I would say the experiences they went through.

Tbh for a while I assumed celestia may of planned letting Nightmare Moon escape because of the timing also she showed up just as they defeated NMM.

Sorry for late reply.

[Cash In 22,223]

Yeah, I enjoyed it, even though it's pretty weird to come back to after watching everything else in the series. I feel that the Mane 6 were introduced pretty well and it did a good job in showing us the bases of their personalities. There are a few inconsistencies here and there and things are definitely more predictable and generic. I'm not going to play judge though, seeing as this was the pilot and it needed to build something. Regardless this was a decent first step into something great.

[CypherHoof 26,482]

I think it did a better job showcasing the mane six than the movie did. When it came to the five challenges though, I didn't find AJ's "trust fall" particularly convincing, and Pinkie's bit was just "what?".

Dashie and Flutters did good jobs on their bits though, with Rarity taking the crown for her self-sacrifice as "generosity".

[Justin_Case001 4,881]

The legend is born.

Y'know, when you go back and rewatch this after watching the later seasons, you realize how far they've come and how much they improved.  I think the pilot episode was a tad corny and cringey in comparison to the later stuff.  I mean, it was still head and shoulders above other "girly" cartoons, but they needed to break it in a little before it really hit its stride.

I still say that AJ's EoH demonstration moment was dumb and lazy.  Y'know, the cliff scene when she tells Twilight, "I'm tellin' you the honest truth; let go and you'll be safe," or however she phrased it exactly.  Why be so mysterious and dramatic about it?  Any sane person would have just said, "THOSE TWO FLYING PEGASI RIGHT BEHIND YOU WILL CATCH YOU!!"  Why was AJ making it some kind of trust-fall test for Twilight?  Surely they could have thought of a better way to test/demonstrate honesty.

And then of course you had fake Luna.  Or, I guess some purists will argue that it's real Luna, but I say it's fake Luna.

[Tom Gallagher 33,581]

What a beginning! Do you think this show will catch on? I noticed a lot of guys liked it, myself included. We should make a name for those people. I'm thinking something that combines 'bro' and 'pony'. What do you think? 

[CypherHoof 26,482]

19 minutes ago, TomDaBombMLP said:

What a beginning! Do you think this show will catch on? I noticed a lot of guys liked it, myself included. We should make a name for those people. I'm thinking something that combines 'bro' and 'pony'. What do you think? 

I hear a bunch of 4chan weirdos have taken a shine to it - so you never know what is going to happen there.....

[Splashee 28,563]

4 hours ago, CypherHoof 🐎 said:

I hear a bunch of 4chan weirdos have taken a shine to it - so you never know what is going to happen there.....

Oh god, not 4chan weirdos!

 

Seriously, if we could go back in time and change this, we would be so "crazy" today. And the Internet would be more free of those Rainbow Dash avatars

 

Also, the first two episodes, are kinda meh to me. I didn't fall for them. And the song was too short. And the CMCs were standing next to each other even though they hadn't met yet. And one background pony had the eyes are derped, which would be an easy fix. Lazy I say, lazy!

[CypherHoof 26,482]

10 minutes ago, Super Splashee said:

And the CMCs were standing next to each other even though they hadn't met yet

Yup, i mention this further up this page, with screenshots and everything

(and of COURSE it starts a new page, just to mess with me. ok, further up the previous page :D)

[Splashee 28,563]

On 3/2/2020 at 12:06 AM, CypherHoof 🐎 said:

Except "all the kids" were exactly those three, despite there being an entire classroom full of kids at the school, in their age group alone?

That seems an even greater coincidence?

They are so cute and scared! Imagine if they just said a word to each other, even once, Equestria would BSOD. They must not interact until episode 13!