My Little Pony: The Movie: The Spoiler Thread

My Little Pony: Spoiling is Tragic (FiM spoiler chat)

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Re: My Little Pony: The Movie: The Spoiler Thread

Postby Just Scuds (?) » Fri Apr 14, 2017 8:38 am

Monitors that do motion smoothing at 240hz look strange when they're displaying animation. I can't adequately describe it, sort of like an uncanny valley thing. I was watching Adventure Time with the sound off in a bar and the word 'cheesy' came to mind.

Who knows what the writer is responding to?
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Postby PaulloDEC (?) » Fri Apr 14, 2017 9:10 am

I figured the comments about framerate were either A) mistranslation or B) the author just meant the animation looked smooth and expressed it in a not-quite-correct way.

Although it could be like Scuds said, the content was shown on a TV with motion smoothing enabled (which incidentally is an abomination).
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Postby Ruflux (?) » Fri Apr 14, 2017 12:26 pm

I was gonna say surely Hasbro would ensure that they're not gonna show off their movie on some motion smoothing enabled screen but then I remember the trailer and lol
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Postby SlateSlabrock (?) » Fri Apr 14, 2017 4:06 pm

MLP has always been a little weird about animating things "on twos" or threes or what have you, since so much of it is Flash premade elements. But if they're talking about an opening sequence, it's possible the team put more effort into it than usual.
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Postby Wayoshi (?) » Sat Aug 05, 2017 7:25 am

I figured this would happen eventually, but it seems we have our first merchandise spoiling the plot of the movie: https://www.equestriadaily.com/2017/08/ ... -book.html

If this is to believed, I think the latest trailer may have a couple scenes from the end of the movie already. :-/
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Postby Dal (?) » Tue Aug 29, 2017 10:51 pm

*reads part about what happens to the other princesses*
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Wed Aug 30, 2017 12:20 am

Dal wrote:*reads part about what happens to the other princesses*


Why take time to come up with something productive for them to do when she can take 30 seconds and do the same, cliche thing she's always done?
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Wed Aug 30, 2017 12:53 am

The Doctor wrote:
Why take time to come up with something productive for them to do when you can take 30 seconds and do the same, cliche thing she's always done?

Worfing them makes the villain seem a little more threatening and effective. I'm not terribly disappointed because this is exactly what I was expecting all along, but I do wish the non-purple princesses could've had a different fate regardless.
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Wed Aug 30, 2017 1:36 am

Fizzbuzz wrote:Worfing them makes the villain seem a little more threatening and effective. I'm not terribly disappointed because this is exactly what I was expecting all along, but I do wish the non-purple princesses could've had a different fate regardless.


But it doesn't anymore. They've diminished the other princesses so much that them being captured in absolutely no way increases the tension or the level of the threat they face.
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Wed Aug 30, 2017 1:56 am

Remember, this movie is meant to appeal to audiences bigger than the show's fans. This has happened a decent number of times in the show, but to people who aren't so involved with FiM, I expect such a scene to have at least a little more dramatic impact.

Admittedly, I also expect the scene to play out at least a bit better in the movie than it did in those couple of paragraphs in the novelization of the movie.
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Wed Aug 30, 2017 2:38 am

Fizzbuzz wrote:Remember, this movie is meant to appeal to audiences bigger than the show's fans. This has happened a decent number of times in the show, but to people who aren't so involved with FiM, I expect such a scene to have at least a little more dramatic impact.

Admittedly, I also expect the scene to play out at least a bit better in the movie than it did in those couple of paragraphs in the novelization of the movie.


I don't. With Meghan's track record I think whoever wrote the novels will try to do more with it. All three of them are getting taken out immediately by the fucking sidekick.

And not to knock Cadance, but why the hell is she even in the movie? With her being in the Empire it's incredibly easy to have her play "Sir Not Appearing In This Picture". Celestia and Luna have to be captured since they're right in the capital and, well, Meghan can't do anything else, but Cadance is being brought down from the Empire just to get turned to stone.
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Postby DerFurShur (?) » Wed Aug 30, 2017 4:21 pm

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Everyone's busy talking Capperity, but behold the movie's true OTP

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Also I'll admit, I'd like to see this make it into the movie
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Postby Soft Snow (?) » Wed Aug 30, 2017 8:06 pm

The Doctor wrote:
I don't. With Meghan's track record I think whoever wrote the novels will try to do more with it. All three of them are getting taken out immediately by the fucking sidekick.

And not to knock Cadance, but why the hell is she even in the movie? With her being in the Empire it's incredibly easy to have her play "Sir Not Appearing In This Picture". Celestia and Luna have to be captured since they're right in the capital and, well, Meghan can't do anything else, but Cadance is being brought down from the Empire just to get turned to stone.

I hear this a lot and I get it. I wish they would come up with a better reason then just being overpowered by the villain and getting captured. Then again, it also doesn't bother me. The story isn't about the princesses. Regardless of how they are disposed of, you and I know they will not contribute to the story. If they are captured or called away on official duty, either way they will be side lined. That is because the princesses are capable of just brute forcing the situation and if they did it wouldn't require the mane six to go on an adventure. In the same fairness, they would have to show the leaders of the country there to show what the stakes are. Not showing or even mentioning the princesses would make the threat feel less important if had been captured.

Brain storming, how would you remove the princesses?
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Wed Aug 30, 2017 8:25 pm

Soft Snow wrote:I hear this a lot and I get it. I wish they would come up with a better reason then just being overpowered by the villain and getting captured. Then again, it also doesn't bother me. The story isn't about the princesses. Regardless of how they are disposed of, you and I know they will not contribute to the story. If they are captured or called away on official duty, either way they will be side lined. That is because the princesses are capable of just brute forcing the situation and if they did it wouldn't require the mane six to go on an adventure. In the same fairness, they would have to show the leaders of the country there to show what the stakes are. Not showing or even mentioning the princesses would make the threat feel less important if had been captured.

Brain storming, how would you remove the princesses?



1. Have the Storm Kings attack be a siege. Have Celestia and Luna fight them while the six are on their adventure for the McGuffin. Maybe the occasional flashback to what they're doing. Have the girls mission be something that can break the stalemate.

2. Have more than one magic McGuffin. Have Celestia and Luna go after one or more, while the girls go after one. It's a movie, it's a big event. Use the film to showcase the strengths of the main and supporting cast.


Just look at things like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. The story was never about Dumbledore or Gandalf, but the solution wasn't to have them get captured over and over and over again. They played active roles in the story, but were not the focus.

The problem is the MLP writers, especially Meghan, almost always approach these big villain stories with the mindset "how can I get rid of these characters", rather than "how can I use these characters".
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Postby SlateSlabrock (?) » Wed Aug 30, 2017 8:30 pm

The Doctor wrote:I don't. With Meghan's track record I think whoever wrote the novels will try to do more with it. All three of them are getting taken out immediately by the fucking sidekick.

I actually agree with you here -- a movie with an edgy OC villain can probably spare a minute to let the princesses be heroic before taking them out of the picture. It's just really hard to take your position seriously when you never stop complaining about it.

Soft Snow wrote:Brain storming, how would you remove the princesses?

I pointed this out in Discord, but go the Transformers movie route. Maybe not literally killing Celestia, but in Transformers, they get ambushed by Decepticons, a bunch of fan favorite characters die, and when things look grim, Optimus comes in, has a duel with Megatron, and they are both mortally wounded. The important point there: He gets to look good saving everyone before succumbing to his injuries.

So, how about: Villains show up, they're wrecking the place, they have some kind of dangerous magic... so the princesses work together to cast a spell to freeze time in Canterlot. Nobody wins, but the mane 6 and the main villains escape. The princesses force a stalemate.

Or: They cast a forcefield over the castle, like with the changelings. Twilight & co. have to stop the villain before they break through.

Or: The princesses totally go ham on some baddies, but there are just too many of them, and they surrender to protect their subjects (and give Twilight time to escape).
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Wed Aug 30, 2017 8:44 pm

SlateSlabrock wrote:I actually agree with you here -- a movie with an edgy OC villain can probably spare a minute to let the princesses be heroic before taking them out of the picture. It's just really hard to take your position seriously when you never stop complaining about it.



Because it keeps happening. Over, and over, and over again. It's not a situation where I focus on those episodes, and not the episodes where they play a part in the resolution against a big bad buy, because there are none.

I take that back.

Congratulations M.A. Larson for having Celestia send all those letters to Twilight way back in S2 to snap her out of her discord-state. You are missed.


But it really is an ongoing problem. And when the S7 finale hits and Celestia and Luna are taken out, or wiped from history by the Pony of Shadows or something I'll bring it up again. Sorry if it sounds like a broken record, but I'm tired of it happening over and over again.
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Postby Dexanth (?) » Thu Aug 31, 2017 2:54 am

We get that you are tired. I am bloody tired of it too. But, like I've said before : You could really stand to express the discontent in a more productive manner, because just like 'How Meghan handles Princesses' is a predictable affair, so is the reaction we witness to it and - well, people get tired of it.

Do I think the method in the book/movie is stupid? Hell yes. It is. It's trite, cliche, and I loathe each usage of it because MLP was a show about avoiding damaging tropes when Lauren was in charge, and since her departure far too often it resorts to the same harmful ones that other properties do.

In the case of the Princesses? Having them reduced to damsels in distress over and over again is poor writing. And - as has been illustrated by both you, and Slate, and numerous other people - there are plenty of ways to handle The Princess Problem without doing the boring Worf affair.

It's been subverted a couple times - namely Nightmare Moon, Discord, and the Crystal Empire all avoided falling into that pit. Cadance was used as a perfect example of 'How to keep her from fixing the issue while making her seem powerful' in the S3 premiere, for example.

So you're hardly alone in exhaustion regarding that, but like, the reaction could stand to be a lot more constructive than subjecting all of us to the same complaints in the exact same way over and over again. I empathize - I used to do it myself - but I had enough people tell me it was irritating to take a step back and learn to either simply not get involved, or else voice it in a more constructive manner.
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Thu Aug 31, 2017 3:23 am

Tough to ignore the issue when the writers are so blatant with it. But fine, I'll just pretend they're not in the movie, and just ignore the issue.

Look, I get you guys are frustrated, but so am I. And it's helpful to vent a little bit about it.
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Postby Soft Snow (?) » Thu Aug 31, 2017 3:25 am

I feel like all this would be resolved if we had one finally where the main six get kidnapped and the princesses had to save them. But they are so overwhelming powerful that none of the minions or attacks can hurt them and it is more of an adventure to find out where they are hiding then anything else.

Like how One Punch man was running through that ship at the end of the season dispatching everyone with ease while everyone on the ground was having trouble with that one guy.

Like have one situation were brute force is the answer and the princesses are best suited for that line of work. Everything would make sense then.
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Postby Bremen (?) » Thu Aug 31, 2017 6:41 am

Soft Snow wrote:I feel like all this would be resolved if we had one finally where the main six get kidnapped and the princesses had to save them. But they are so overwhelming powerful that none of the minions or attacks can hurt them and it is more of an adventure to find out where they are hiding then anything else.

Like how One Punch man was running through that ship at the end of the season dispatching everyone with ease while everyone on the ground was having trouble with that one guy.

Like have one situation were brute force is the answer and the princesses are best suited for that line of work. Everything would make sense then.
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A core part of MLP is that violence is never the answer. The characters might try it; another core part is just because the main characters are female doesn't make them helpless; but it's not the solution to the problem in the end. An easy way to reconcile those two is that when the characters try violence they lose (which is often true even of the Mane 6; witness the fight in Canterlot Wedding, Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep, or Twilight's duel with Tirek, though the latter was more of a draw).

I think the princesses are one of the big casualties there. Part of it is Worfing, sure, to show how dangerous the bad guy is, but a lot is just that the show is always going to be brute force fails but positive love/friendship/hope saves the day, and that usually comes down to the mane 6.

Doesn't keep it from being annoying when it happens constantly but I understand why the show writers do it.

A different approach while keeping within that framework might have been to have Celestia lose the fight but be taken prisoner, and through the movie have her compassion slowly make inroads with Tempest. But A) that still doesn't address the "Helpless Celestia" problem, and B) The movie is probably meant to be more about Twilight.
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Postby Venusy (?) » Thu Aug 31, 2017 6:53 am

The Doctor wrote:
I don't. With Meghan's track record I think whoever wrote the novels will try to do more with it. All three of them are getting taken out immediately by the fucking sidekick.

And not to knock Cadance, but why the hell is she even in the movie? With her being in the Empire it's incredibly easy to have her play "Sir Not Appearing In This Picture". Celestia and Luna have to be captured since they're right in the capital and, well, Meghan can't do anything else, but Cadance is being brought down from the Empire just to get turned to stone.

Because there's probably a movie Cadance toy to sell.
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Postby Dexanth (?) » Thu Aug 31, 2017 11:11 am

Bremen wrote:
A core part of MLP is that violence is never the answer. The characters might try it; another core part is just because the main characters are female doesn't make them helpless; but it's not the solution to the problem in the end. An easy way to reconcile those two is that when the characters try violence they lose (which is often true even of the Mane 6; witness the fight in Canterlot Wedding, Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep, or Twilight's duel with Tirek, though the latter was more of a draw).

I think the princesses are one of the big casualties there. Part of it is Worfing, sure, to show how dangerous the bad guy is, but a lot is just that the show is always going to be brute force fails but positive love/friendship/hope saves the day, and that usually comes down to the mane 6.

Doesn't keep it from being annoying when it happens constantly but I understand why the show writers do it.

A different approach while keeping within that framework might have been to have Celestia lose the fight but be taken prisoner, and through the movie have her compassion slowly make inroads with Tempest. But A) that still doesn't address the "Helpless Celestia" problem, and B) The movie is probably meant to be more about Twilight.


I mean, I'd counter it with 'Violence kind of has solved a bunch of premieres and finales'.

Nightmare Moon & Discord got shot with giant friendship lasers, Chrysalis ate a love laser, Sombra got vaporized by re-empowering the Crystal Heart, Tirek got tasered by Rainbow Power, and Chrysalis ate ANOTHER love laser.

Now, the power source for all of those was positive emotion/bonds of some kind - but the villains never surrendered, they were blasted into oblivion. The key to all of them is that alone one may be powerful, but the greatest power comes from forming true bonds of friendship & love with others & working together to conquer foes.

As for the Worfing? If you look at the # of Worfs, all but one of them are Meghan. The only one that wasn't was the S6 finale, and that one was far more 'Set up the plot fast' than anything else. Had they had the run time I'm confident that the shortcuts employed wouldn't have been so and the whole Changeling Abduction would have been sold much better.

But yea, it's part of why since Meghan has been moved off the show the show has moved away from Worfing, because the newer writers are finding ways to handle The Princess Problem that don't involve capture/imprisonment/etc.

Really, what it comes down to - if you look at Meghan's writing credits, she wrote a ton of really strong stuff in S1/S2, but from S3 onwards...not so much. I really liked Power Ponies, but that's about it, because otherwise she really was just writing the same story over and over with a new coat of paint.

And that's my issue with the movie : It's the S2/S3/S4 Finale/Premiere/Both all over again, with a new coat of paint. From all the spoilers I've read tonight, the entire journey the mane 6 go on is ultimately basically pointless, and thus is just time padding.

Which sucks - because the art is gorgeous and I know the non-writing portions of the creative team look like they've done an amazing job, but when your script is fundamentally flawed...

I mean, we have:
1. A main villain with no motivation beyond 'Haha I want power!'
2. A secondary villain who is more powerful than every main character and takes on the Power Elite and wins effortlessly.
3. A ton of characters who don't fit the design aesthetic till now - The Storm King, the Pirates, and most egregiously, Capper - who all look completely out of place compared to Equestria as-was.
4. A giant fetch quest that, from what I can see so far, is pointless - in the end, Twilight is captured, and the only thing the fetch quest does is let the Mane 5 come home with new allies to rescue Twilight
5. A finale that boils down to 'grab the magic staff' leading to
6. The villain dying because he betrays his sidekick and Twilight saves her, and said sidekick jumps in front of the grenade meant for Twilight and the Big Bad is destroyed in the backlash (But not Tempest because she is Redeemd and so is saved).
7. Status quo restored completely.

It's a bunch of setpieces where character agency is continually deprived from both main & supporting cast members. I mean, the Princesses are most egregious - the whole 'Turned to stone' is like the single biggest version of Damsel in Distress you can possibly use - but it happens to Twilight & arguably Tempest as well.

The problem is most of the characters are going off of fairly dull extrinsic motivations - Power / Fix my horn / Save Equestria - compared to more compelling ones.

It's why the original Star Wars trilogy is far better than the new, because every character in there, both hero & villain, has a personal motivation & personal arc that guides their journey. Here? It's clear they were originally trying for that - the artbook makes that very clear - but all of that got basically watered down into the dull milquetoast that the story has become.

The Doctor wrote:Tough to ignore the issue when the writers are so blatant with it. But fine, I'll just pretend they're not in the movie, and just ignore the issue.

Look, I get you guys are frustrated, but so am I. And it's helpful to vent a little bit about it.


I am not saying 'You need to ignore the thing', I am saying 'It would be helpful to vent in a more constructive manner'.
But fine, I'll just pretend they're not in the movie, and just ignore the issue.
-> There's no real way to engage with that, it's just 'Hey, this is shit, shit, shit' and even if you are right...that kind of response only appeals to people who feel the same way and want to basically say variations on the same thing over and over.

It's why I have the above - illustrating why I'm frustrated because the show can & has been so much more in terms of story & characterization, and the movie is just resorting to a bunch of trite tropes now.

And that makes me sad - In part because I wanted a movie I'd love, but moreso because it means there's a no-win situation. The movie flops? Great, the franchise I love just took a major gut punch that might be fatal. The movie somehow succeeds anyway? Great, that means the studios take the wrong lesson and continue to think they can churn out shitty writing if it has enough flashy lights.

The only 'win' I see is 'It is barely profitable, and it is obvious the reason it wasn't more profitable is that everyone says the story was weak and had it had a stronger story it would have been amazing'. :pinkieshrug:
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Postby Dexanth (?) » Thu Aug 31, 2017 11:14 am

To add an addendum : I'm betting studio meddling has a lot to do here with it, because of the massive emphasis on the 'All Star' cast so they can try and sell tickets based on secondary characters.

They'd have had a better movie had they spent that budget on better writing and just continued sourcing their talent in Vancouver, because the VAs there are just as good if not better, and I mean, look at like Disney - yea, The Rock in Moana helps, but that's hardly what made the movie phenomenal.
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Postby Bremen (?) » Thu Aug 31, 2017 2:50 pm

Dexanth wrote:
I mean, I'd counter it with 'Violence kind of has solved a bunch of premieres and finales'.

Nightmare Moon & Discord got shot with giant friendship lasers, Chrysalis ate a love laser, Sombra got vaporized by re-empowering the Crystal Heart, Tirek got tasered by Rainbow Power, and Chrysalis ate ANOTHER love laser.

Now, the power source for all of those was positive emotion/bonds of some kind - but the villains never surrendered, they were blasted into oblivion. The key to all of them is that alone one may be powerful, but the greatest power comes from forming true bonds of friendship & love with others & working together to conquer foes.


I meant violence in a different context, to clarify; I mean the characters fighting (physically or with their own magic) wont solve the problems. Friendship lasers et all are solving the problem with friendship. However, since Friendship lasers are (usually) the domain of the Mane 6, that tends to result in the Princesses being somehow rendered helpless. Canterlot Wedding is an exception to this specifically because the Friendship Laser came from a non-Twilight Princess.
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Thu Aug 31, 2017 3:04 pm

Dexanth wrote:And that makes me sad - In part because I wanted a movie I'd love, but moreso because it means there's a no-win situation. The movie flops? Great, the franchise I love just took a major gut punch that might be fatal. The movie somehow succeeds anyway? Great, that means the studios take the wrong lesson and continue to think they can churn out shitty writing if it has enough flashy lights.



I don't fear for the franchise if the movie tanks. Might mean no chance at a second movie, but like the show, I think the success will be determined by merch sales.

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Postby Dexanth (?) » Thu Aug 31, 2017 3:25 pm

Bremen wrote:
I meant violence in a different context, to clarify; I mean the characters fighting (physically or with their own magic) wont solve the problems. Friendship lasers et all are solving the problem with friendship. However, since Friendship lasers are (usually) the domain of the Mane 6, that tends to result in the Princesses being somehow rendered helpless. Canterlot Wedding is an exception to this specifically because the Friendship Laser came from a non-Twilight Princess.


I guess I find that a bit of wiggling in semantics to say 'Because the source of the doom laser is friendship, it's not violent' :-P

The only other thing I'd say is 'Tends to result in' - like, yes, it has resulted in that, but not because it's necessary. I mean if you look at Season 5 - that was where the problem (Both times) was actually solved non-violently, and in neither case did the trope get resorted to.
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Postby Bremen (?) » Thu Aug 31, 2017 3:40 pm

Dexanth wrote:
I guess I find that a bit of wiggling in semantics to say 'Because the source of the doom laser is friendship, it's not violent' :-P


I think the opposite; I suspect the goal is that the show shouldn't be encouraging violence (by showing it as an answer to problems). Solving the problem with friendship gets around that, even if in this case "friendship" is a giant laser beam that zaps the bad guy.

Going at it from that frame, there's a big difference between Twilight beating up Tirek and Twilight giving up in the name of friendship and being rewarded with a laser beam to beat up Tirek.
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Postby Dexanth (?) » Thu Aug 31, 2017 7:32 pm

Arguably at this point we mooostly agree - but I'd still say that if you compare like the S5 finale to the S4 finale, the S5 finale has a much stronger 'You win with words, not action' that applies far, far more strongly to Starlight Glimmer than it ever could to Tirek.
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Postby Bremen (?) » Fri Sep 01, 2017 1:24 am

Dexanth wrote:Arguably at this point we mooostly agree - but I'd still say that if you compare like the S5 finale to the S4 finale, the S5 finale has a much stronger 'You win with words, not action' that applies far, far more strongly to Starlight Glimmer than it ever could to Tirek.


Oh, I definitely agree. I consider the S4 finale the weakest of the series, to be honest (and S5 one of the best). It's just a convenient example. Though come to think of it so is S5; realistically Twilight probably should have been able to deal with it directly, but they wanted a non-violent solution to the problem (also it would have been a really short episode).
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Postby Soft Snow (?) » Fri Sep 01, 2017 2:37 am

The Doctor wrote:1. Have the Storm Kings attack be a siege. Have Celestia and Luna fight them while the six are on their adventure for the McGuffin. Maybe the occasional flashback to what they're doing. Have the girls mission be something that can break the stalemate.

2. Have more than one magic McGuffin. Have Celestia and Luna go after one or more, while the girls go after one. It's a movie, it's a big event. Use the film to showcase the strengths of the main and supporting cast.


SlateSlabrock wrote:Or: They cast a forcefield over the castle, like with the changelings. Twilight & co. have to stop the villain before they break through.

Or: The princesses totally go ham on some baddies, but there are just too many of them, and they surrender to protect their subjects (and give Twilight time to escape).

All these sound like really great ideas. I would love to see these play out more so then what ever else is planned with the Princesses.

But, honestly, I'm not sure what happens to the princesses yet. I imagine they are hit with a magic beam or something and then captured.

But here is the weird thing. All the stuff that happened to Twilight took place over the course of a few years. Can you imagine all the things that would happen over a thousand years? And Celestia had to have taken care of that all by herself. Even in the alternate timelines, Celestia was handling a lot of the problems by herself until certain points. The problem is that it is only ever implied, never shown.

I mean the writers have to be aware of this, right? They make all these other meta jokes about the fandom's complaints, surely they have to be aware of this one as well, right?

It is one of the those questions like is Scootaloo an orphan? Is applejack's parents dead? Is the princesses really powerful? We may never know for sure.
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Postby Dexanth (?) » Fri Sep 01, 2017 6:33 am

That's part of why the Princesses getting jobbed over and over again grates on people - because it seems to violate the rules that MLP created for itself. Celestia ruled alone for 1,000 years, and Equestria stood, and she/Luna literally move heavenly bodies.

So the show sets them up as kind of really powerful in a bunch of ways.

Okay, cool, that's good.

Except when it proceeds to have them thrown off their pedestals every other premiere/finale, again and again, it flies in the face of what the show asks us to buy into.

If Celestia were incompetent from the getgo, like how Jerry is in Rick and Morty or Michael Scott in the Office or really anyone in British Comedy, then them failing over and over wouldn't be an issue. It would be expected.

And...well, if you look at it, the only loss Celestia has had Meghan wasn't involved in is the S6 finale - so in a lot of ways, you can contend that the whole issue is because of one person :v:
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Postby DerFurShur (?) » Fri Sep 01, 2017 10:35 am

Dexanth wrote:
And...well, if you look at it, the only loss Celestia has had Meghan wasn't involved in is the S6 finale



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And that's not even counting all her implied losses in that episode alone.
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Fri Sep 01, 2017 12:40 pm

Yeah the S5 finale is kind of a montage of "These two can't protect their country in any conceivable timeline." There's even a timeline where they can't stop film and flam from strip mining the country.

Dexanth wrote:That's part of why the Princesses getting jobbed over and over again grates on people - because it seems to violate the rules that MLP created for itself. Celestia ruled alone for 1,000 years, and Equestria stood, and she/Luna literally move heavenly bodies.

So the show sets them up as kind of really powerful in a bunch of ways.

Okay, cool, that's good.

Except when it proceeds to have them thrown off their pedestals every other premiere/finale, again and again, it flies in the face of what the show asks us to buy into.


This kind of hits the nail on the head. It kind of ruins the lore set up in the show.
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Postby Dexanth (?) » Fri Sep 01, 2017 4:04 pm

The Doctor wrote:Yeah the S5 finale is kind of a montage of "These two can't protect their country in any conceivable timeline." There's even a timeline where they can't stop film and flam from strip mining the country.



This kind of hits the nail on the head. It kind of ruins the lore set up in the show.


The S5 finale I can deal. NMM, Discord, and Chrysalis are all ones that have been show capable of winning, and Chrysalis is the only one not clearly Celestia-tier or higher from the word go, but without Twilight also would have won.

Also the Discord, Chrysalis, Sombra, and Tirek timelines mean Celestia had to defeat NMM/NMM + Discord/NMM + Discord + Chrysalis/NMM + Discord + Chrysalis + Sombra solo in those timelines, and also in the Sombra line she was holding the line at a bare minimum.

Plus at least the most popular fan theory I've heard for the apocalypse timeline is it's one where Celestia either went evil and blew up the world, or else unleashed her full power and blew up the world.

And on last point, yea - that stuck due to the latest season of GoT and people being annoyed about how suddenly travel is super fast and the reason why it bugs them is it breaks the rules the show set for itself, and it clicked that that's why it bugs me here so much. :-P
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Fri Sep 01, 2017 7:27 pm

I still kind of like the S5 finale. I give it some leeway because it's time travel wackiness, and time travel never makes sense if you start thinking about it too much...



I mean, just two examples. How did NMM trap Celestia in the moon when you need the Elements to do that? How did Celestia manage to cure Luna in the Discord Timeline, but not the NMM timeline? It was very inconsistent, but again, wibbly wobbly, timey wimey. There's a suspension of disbelief that has to be had in any time travel story, no matter how well crafted and thought out.

But I still think it reinforces the idea that Celestia and Luna are helpless to protect their land, even if it's doing so in a way that it's just a background thing the entire episode.
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Postby Dal (?) » Fri Sep 01, 2017 7:56 pm

The S5 finale shows that Celestia heavily planned on someone becoming the Element of Magic. All we are seeing are the result of plan B's or worse.

Would've been cool to see one reality where everything is fine but you had Sunset Shimmer in Twilight's role.
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Postby Dexanth (?) » Fri Sep 01, 2017 8:06 pm

Dal wrote:The S5 finale shows that Celestia heavily planned on someone becoming the Element of Magic. All we are seeing are the result of plan B's or worse.

Would've been cool to see one reality where everything is fine but you had Sunset Shimmer in Twilight's role.


That would have been awesome. You'd need something to make it I guess not-good though or Twilight might go 'Good enough' and stick around.

I do think the S5 finale was a golden opportunity to bring in Daybreaker or another version of Evilestia 2 Seasons early that was missed. Though I suppose problem is I'm not sure which timeline to ditch for it. Stupid run-time limitations, this should have been a 3-parter :v:
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Fri Sep 01, 2017 8:17 pm

Dal wrote:The S5 finale shows that Celestia heavily planned on someone becoming the Element of Magic. All we are seeing are the result of plan B's or worse.

Would've been cool to see one reality where everything is fine but you had Sunset Shimmer in Twilight's role.


They should have done a comedy "perfect timline". Celestia, Luna, Discord, Tirek, Chryalis sand Sombra all sitting around a table drinking tea.

:excite: This timeline is absolutely wonderful. Princess, is there a history book I can read to catch up on things?

:pcstare: What's a book?

:twonk: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

:books begin falling from the sky:

:speakest: Oh look, it's raining again.
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Postby PaulloDEC (?) » Fri Sep 01, 2017 11:32 pm

Dexanth wrote:That's part of why the Princesses getting jobbed over and over again grates on people - because it seems to violate the rules that MLP created for itself. Celestia ruled alone for 1,000 years, and Equestria stood, and she/Luna literally move heavenly bodies.

So the show sets them up as kind of really powerful in a bunch of ways.

Okay, cool, that's good.

Except when it proceeds to have them thrown off their pedestals every other premiere/finale, again and again, it flies in the face of what the show asks us to buy into.

If Celestia were incompetent from the getgo, like how Jerry is in Rick and Morty or Michael Scott in the Office or really anyone in British Comedy, then them failing over and over wouldn't be an issue. It would be expected.

And...well, if you look at it, the only loss Celestia has had Meghan wasn't involved in is the S6 finale - so in a lot of ways, you can contend that the whole issue is because of one person :v:


Y'know if they'd thought ahead a bit they could've established early-ish on that Celestia and Luna were getting old and weak and the Princess Ascension Program™ (see: Cadance, Twilight) was their solution. That way you've got an explanation for their past glories, an explanation for their current... difficulties and an ongoing justification for why anyone else is ever needed when you've got two God-Queens hanging around.
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Postby Dexanth (?) » Fri Sep 01, 2017 11:40 pm

See, the idea that like, they were either going Into the West soon, or more preferably just needed to pull a Philomena but because alicorns it was still decades away?

That would have been really cool.

Now you are giving me ideas, darnit. I have too many planned possible stories ALREADY
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