Off-Season General Show Chat

here a forum about pony (General Pony Talk)

Moderators: Perrydotto, Dexanth, Venusy, Wayoshi

Re: In-Season General Show Chat

Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Wed Jul 29, 2015 8:31 pm

I think the complaint "like a fanfic" is a bad one in general, because it implies that fanfiction in general is always going to be bad and out of character, so when the show acts OOC, it's "like a fanfic". But that doesn't make sense, as first off being OOC isn't fanfic-tier, lot of fanfics have characters written well. Being OOC is just, well, being OOC. It'll happen anywhere. :pinkieshrug:

Another reason Magic Duel probably got all that "fanfic-like" stuff, was because Trixie came back, a lot of fanfics had that in mind too. But then again, Lauren Faust herself said that she toyed with the idea, so it's night like they took it from fanfiction. Especially considering the "no fanfiction/fanart" rule the ones working on the show have.
ShieldedDiamond
User avatar
Rarity's Roughnecks
Joined: Dec 13, 2013

Postby InsertAuthorHere (?) » Wed Jul 29, 2015 8:34 pm

I've rewatched the first two seasons to death, as well as the second half of Season 4.

Season 3 is pretty much the only one I haven't touched much, outside of Sleepless in Ponyville, Magic Duel, and Just for Sidekicks. Same is true for the first half of Season 4. I kind of lump the two together because early Season 4 feels like it's just an extension of Season 3, outside of the brief focus on the Box and Twilight's wings. As many have noted, Twilight's role as a princess really has no bearing outside of those first three episodes up through Twilight Time (which kicks off the second half of the season, where things start to improve), so the wings could have been erased, she would have been a unicorn still, and the episodes would have worked just fine. As for Season 3, a lot of its episodes were okay at best, outside of the very solid Sleepless in Ponyville, and it had two episodes I cannot stand watching again (Keep Calm and Flutter On because I can rarely stand a whole episode of Discord even when he is a villain, and Magical Mystery Cure because of the hellstorm that surrounded it for the nearly-a-year it took for Season 4 to start).

Season 5 is so far turning out stronger than the two that preceded it. The only real low point has been Princess Spike, and that's mostly because it's a lazily-written episode. Meanwhile, Amending Fences is probably the best episode of the entire show so far, The Cutie Map is on-par with (if not superior to) The Return of Harmony, and while not all of the worldbuilding and episodes have worked, there's nothing that seems hideously out-of-place or terrible. Here's hoping the second half is even stronger.

Fizzbuzz wrote:Most of the criticism that I ever hear for Magic Duel is that it sounds like something that a fanfic would've done. I don't get that since I mean, come on, there's lots of stuff that fanfiction would've done. :pinkieshrug: Aside from how Fluttershy acted I think that was a good episode.

In fact, that criticism was common enough that, starting with Wonderbolts Academy and continuing on for a while after that, Kefka had to put this boilerplate warning in the OP of episode threads:


What's even more confusing about that criticism is that Magic Duel really doesn't follow the typical "Trixie redemption" fanfiction mold. The majority of stories I've been able to find in that genre focus more on Trixie being homeless and without a career, being found by one or all of the Mane 6, and learning about how wonderful friendship could be. Not too many of them involve revenge, mind-warping amulets, rock farms, Ponyville getting put under glass, and Trixie actually being an antagonist rather than a poor victim of the Mane 6's cruelty.

The only episode I honestly think could be considered "fanfiction-like" is Slice of Life, and that was really the whole point of that episode. It took the same bits and pieces the fandom has latched onto, put its own interpretation on them, and connected it back to the actual show with a moral about how everyone has their own story. It's part of the reason why I think SoL is ultimately fated to age poorly, especially when the show ends and the fandom moves on.

The reason the criticism is so common is that it's easy to say and you don't have to justify it. People inherently associate "fanfic" with "crap," so saying that an episode is "like a fanfic" is a shorthand way of saying you think the episode is crap without actually saying why you think it's crap. If you actually pointed out stuff you disliked, then people might challenge those reasons or simply disagree, but if you blanket the criticism by associating the episode with something that is popularly disdained, you've effectively prevented any sort of actual response. See also, "Don't delude yourself into thinking this is good," and, "Only drones would like this episode."
InsertAuthorHere
User avatar
Joined: Apr 03, 2013
Gender: Male

Postby Homeswirl (?) » Wed Jul 29, 2015 9:07 pm

I think Dragonshy is the episode I've seen the most, because it's the one my nieces like the best.

The most defensible reason. :twiright:
Homeswirl
User avatar
Joined: Nov 26, 2013

Postby Mr. Big (?) » Wed Jul 29, 2015 9:11 pm

I think my most rewatched episode is "Feeling Pinkie Keen". That was the craziest episode the show has done in season 1, and it's what made me love the show.

Typically, I don't really re-watch most cartoons I see on TV, unless I really liked it. Although I did watch S5's "The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone" and "Amending Fences" a few times.
Mr. Big
User avatar
Cats are all you need
Scootaloo's Pro Scooters
Joined: Mar 27, 2011
Location: TN
Gender: Male

Postby Headless Horse (?) » Wed Jul 29, 2015 11:19 pm

InsertAuthorHere wrote:What's even more confusing about that criticism is that Magic Duel really doesn't follow the typical "Trixie redemption" fanfiction mold. The majority of stories I've been able to find in that genre focus more on Trixie being homeless and without a career, being found by one or all of the Mane 6, and learning about how wonderful friendship could be. Not too many of them involve revenge, mind-warping amulets, rock farms, Ponyville getting put under glass, and Trixie actually being an antagonist rather than a poor victim of the Mane 6's cruelty.

The only episode I honestly think could be considered "fanfiction-like" is Slice of Life, and that was really the whole point of that episode. It took the same bits and pieces the fandom has latched onto, put its own interpretation on them, and connected it back to the actual show with a moral about how everyone has their own story. It's part of the reason why I think SoL is ultimately fated to age poorly, especially when the show ends and the fandom moves on.

The reason the criticism is so common is that it's easy to say and you don't have to justify it. People inherently associate "fanfic" with "crap," so saying that an episode is "like a fanfic" is a shorthand way of saying you think the episode is crap without actually saying why you think it's crap. If you actually pointed out stuff you disliked, then people might challenge those reasons or simply disagree, but if you blanket the criticism by associating the episode with something that is popularly disdained, you've effectively prevented any sort of actual response. See also, "Don't delude yourself into thinking this is good," and, "Only drones would like this episode."


The way I feel about the "fanfic" criticism is this:

Saying an episode is "like a fanfic" isn't, to me, just shorthand for "crappy" or "lazy"—or at least it might be for some people, but not the ones who are trying to make the charge mean something. Rather, it's pointing out specific characteristics of the story or the presentation that you do see exclusively in fanfics, particularly bad ones.

I'm not talking about concepts like "Trixie returns". There's nothing inherently fanficcy about that. What is fanficcy is direct callbacks to specific gags that had felt at the time, in their original appearances, like imaginative one-off stunts meant to show off how wacky and unpredictable the universe is. Case in point would be one fanfic I saw that painstakingly described Twilight reacting to something that made her mad: "Her coat turned white and her eyes became red, and her mane and tail were replaced with bright flames as she hovered several feet above the ground". In other words the text just slavishly described a cartoonish sight gag that nobody watching the original episode (FPK) ought to have understood to be literally what happened, but the fanfic treated it as a literal narrative anyway. And all that does is expose the fanfic as being devoid of the kind of imagination and inventiveness that the writers of the show, who come up with ways to treat concepts like "Trixie returns" that don't feel like retreads of old material, can bring to the table.

So I don't begrudge Magic Duel its use of concepts like Trixie returning for revenge, or Trixie being a neurotic weirdo with a phobia of wheels, or even a gag in which Pinkie loses her mouth to an in-universe Flash animator. Those are pure Larson wackiness. What doesn't feel like it draws from the same creative well are the extremely specific callbacks to previously seen gags, like the parasprite out of nowhere, or Pinkie doing her one-pony-band bit, or the rock farm reference (I kinda wanted Pinkie's past to remain a misty no-man's-land that might be canonically an Amish moonscape of depression or that might all have been bullshit she was making up on the spot, who the hell knows, it's Pinkie Pie). Those gags had their best impact when they came and went and we never saw them again, and the show replaced them with new and more fanciful things like felt-constructed imagination or live-action rubber chickens or a pony who loves to soak in jelly jars. Don't bring those things back! That's the kind of thing that fanfic—and specifically bad fanfic, the kind that doesn't know how to come up with new stuff and can only iterate endlessly on the scriptural canon that's been seen on screen—does.


E: Of course, when an episode manages to reference an old one-off gag and actually make it into something bigger and better—like Flutterguy—then that's something special, something that transcends the "fanficcy" nature of the story. But it's something you can't get away with too often, because it's rare that such a gag can actually be mined for legitimate story material.
Last edited by Headless Horse on Wed Jul 29, 2015 11:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Headless Horse
User avatar
The yoke is strictly ornamental
Faithful Students
Joined: May 23, 2011

Postby The Doctor (?) » Wed Jul 29, 2015 11:22 pm

Magic Duel just felt a little lazy. OK, Trixie has magic McGuffin. Lets just have her screw with things for a while. She literally terrorized an entire town, and the redemption just came off as weak.
The Doctor
User avatar
Turner of all things timey wimey
Celestia's Champions
Joined: May 05, 2011
Location: Time & Space
Gender: Male

Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Wed Jul 29, 2015 11:55 pm

The Doctor wrote:Magic Duel just felt a little lazy. OK, Trixie has magic McGuffin. Lets just have her screw with things for a while. She literally terrorized an entire town, and the redemption just came off as weak.

I got to agree, some of the redemptions are really coming out poorly. The only one that comes to mind that I feel is being handled well is Sunset Shimmer.

-Luna I feel really doesn't get much expansion, she appears too little. I know there's something in Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep, but I haven't seen that, so I can't comment.
-Discord's redemption process itself is okay, but he's still way too much of a jerk, to a point where I find myself often questioning why they still bother to tolerate him. Especially after flat out betraying them in Twilight's Kingdom, which he only went back on because Tirek betrayed him.
-Trixie was redeemed too fast.

Which leaves us with Sunset, who is the only one we see struggling, not only with forgiving herself, but struggling with people who still are upset with her. And while Luna may still be hard on herself, she has that "no one is really mad at her" thing going on. Nightmare Night was a little different, especially considering she was a legend of a monster, but people were afraid of her, they didn't hate her. Which is a pretty big difference.

I'm hoping Starlight doesn't get redeemed, because so far I haven't been happy with their current redemption record.
ShieldedDiamond
User avatar
Rarity's Roughnecks
Joined: Dec 13, 2013

Postby Bremen (?) » Thu Jul 30, 2015 12:44 am

ShieldedDiamond wrote:I got to agree, some of the redemptions are really coming out poorly. The only one that comes to mind that I feel is being handled well is Sunset Shimmer.

-Luna I feel really doesn't get much expansion, she appears too little. I know there's something in Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep, but I haven't seen that, so I can't comment.
-Discord's redemption process itself is okay, but he's still way too much of a jerk, to a point where I find myself often questioning why they still bother to tolerate him. Especially after flat out betraying them in Twilight's Kingdom, which he only went back on because Tirek betrayed him.
-Trixie was redeemed too fast.

Which leaves us with Sunset, who is the only one we see struggling, not only with forgiving herself, but struggling with people who still are upset with her. And while Luna may still be hard on herself, she has that "no one is really mad at her" thing going on. Nightmare Night was a little different, especially considering she was a legend of a monster, but people were afraid of her, they didn't hate her. Which is a pretty big difference.

I'm hoping Starlight doesn't get redeemed, because so far I haven't been happy with their current redemption record.


I find that interesting, since I found Sunset's redemption to be the most spontaneous and unearned of them all. One moment she's all planning on conquering Equestria, the next she's all apologizing and saying she didn't realize being nice was a valid option. It's like the elements just crossed out "evil" and wrote in "good" on her character sheet. And if you accept that, it also explains Luna and Discord easily. Luna was similar, admittedly, but at least with her Celestia extended the offer and there was a lot more room for honest regret.

Discord.. well, I'll agree that he's still enough of a jerk that the mane 6 even trying to be friends comes off as charitable on their part, though it's also in their own interest to do so since they need him to keep behaving. I kind of like that he didn't instantly become pleasant and polite just because he was (mostly) reformed.

I never really considered Trixie redeemed. I realize this risks reopening old debates, but heck, it's the hiatus, let the posts flow. I always viewed Trixie as more of a jerk than a villain; even in her Boast Busters days, I imagine that if someone were in serious trouble she would have helped them (and gloated about how wonderful she was later, of course) and drawn the line at anything seriously nasty. When she got the Alicorn Amulet, it made her start losing it and going full evil; once that influence was gone even she realized she'd gone too far and apologized. But I imagine she's still more or less the same jerk that she was when first introduced, though perhaps slightly humbled by her losses.
Bremen
User avatar
Joined: Oct 09, 2011
Gender: Male

Postby The Doctor (?) » Thu Jul 30, 2015 12:47 am

I think Sunset's redemption works pretty well when you factor in both films. She does a heel turn, but at the same time, she's not instantly forgiven, even by the human mane 5. She has to earn that redemption, and she does.
The Doctor
User avatar
Turner of all things timey wimey
Celestia's Champions
Joined: May 05, 2011
Location: Time & Space
Gender: Male

Postby Bremen (?) » Thu Jul 30, 2015 12:56 am

Fair enough. I'm looking at the redemptions from a character motivation perspective; basically why they decided to suddenly be good instead of evil; rather than what others think of them.
Bremen
User avatar
Joined: Oct 09, 2011
Gender: Male

Postby The Doctor (?) » Thu Jul 30, 2015 12:59 am

Bremen wrote:Fair enough. I'm looking at the redemptions from a character motivation perspective; basically why they decided to suddenly be good instead of evil; rather than what others think of them.


I think what others think is just as important. That's why Trixie's doesn't sit well with me. She just says "My bad" and everyone's find with that. Sunset sees the error of her ways and at best. The other students hate her for what she did, and , the Mane 5 tolerate her. She has to earn their forgiveness, it's not just handed to her.
The Doctor
User avatar
Turner of all things timey wimey
Celestia's Champions
Joined: May 05, 2011
Location: Time & Space
Gender: Male

Postby The Outlander (?) » Thu Jul 30, 2015 1:51 am

I'm not sure it's even debatable that Sunset Shimmer had the best redemption on the show. She went from one of the most unlikable villains in the show to definite protagonist material. I look forward to her being the main character of the next EqG movie.
Kate wrote:there are as many female characters in the base game as there are Cole McGraths
The Outlander
User avatar
Oh Barry~
Rarity's Roughnecks
Joined: Oct 21, 2012
Location: Bradford, PA

Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Thu Jul 30, 2015 2:04 am

The Outlander wrote:I'm not sure it's even debatable that Sunset Shimmer had the best redemption on the show. She went from one of the most unlikable villains in the show to definite protagonist material. I look forward to her being the main character of the next EqG movie.

Was it actually meaningful, though? That's something about EqG that left a bad taste in my mouth, that her demonic transformation got shrugged off by basically everyone who wasn't her and that she was even allowed to continue to be at that school. Her redemption happened, sure, but it feels to me like it happened more out of necessity (so that EqG could start telling its own stories instead of continuing to be propped up by FiM) than anything else.
Image
Fizzbuzz
User avatar
Stare Masters
Joined: Mar 02, 2013
Location: TN
Gender: Male

Postby The Doctor (?) » Thu Jul 30, 2015 2:07 am

Well, Sunset staying in the EQG is a giant plot hole, done solely for the convenience of the sequel. I don't think the fact that there was absolutely no reason for her to stay all that much diminished the fact that she did have to earn that redemption since she was basically stuck there by the script gods.
The Doctor
User avatar
Turner of all things timey wimey
Celestia's Champions
Joined: May 05, 2011
Location: Time & Space
Gender: Male

Postby Master_Twig (?) » Thu Jul 30, 2015 2:17 am

There's nothing about Equestria Girls that didn't leave a bad taste in my mouth. I view it as a black stain on an otherwise solid franchise. I did watch it and give it a fair chance. There were a lot of plot holes, almost everything surrounding Sunset Shimmer notwithstanding.
Master_Twig
User avatar
Hey look, a bee.
Joined: Feb 18, 2011

Postby InsertAuthorHere (?) » Thu Jul 30, 2015 2:41 am

About the only post-redemption character I'm still not a fan of is Discord. The issue is that he can't play a straight villain role anymore (any attempt to do so would be a retread of Return of Harmony), so he either has to play an evil-but-punished-for-it-and-turns-good role (see Twilight's Kingdom) or he just has to be a jerk that ruins things because he's a jerk (see everything else he's done from Season 4 on). Furthermore, he's only really funny when he's being a self-centered jerk willing to do terrible things to ponies and ruin their day if it suits him. Other characters have had bad redemption moments, but they're usually still fun to have afterwards. Sunset Shimmer has become the protagonist of the Equestria Girls series, as she fills in the same role as Twilight but approaches the friendship issues from a different angle (that is, the villain who now has to learn what friendship could be). Luna managed to have a great return episode in Luna Eclipsed, serves as a dream mentor to the CMC, and has the ease with which she was forgiven explored a bit in Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep. Trixie hasn't returned to the show, but she had some strong showings in the IDW comics set after Magic Duel where she was still an egotistical jerk, but had more of a heart to her.

Discord...has had none of that. He's had his moments, but they're usually countered almost immediately by him brushing off his terrible deeds or doing something even more horrible in another episode. Then again, there's no way to actually get rid of him now, unless the Mane 6 can assume those rainbow forms again and they come with a "petrify" setting.

The Doctor wrote:
I think what others think is just as important. That's why Trixie's doesn't sit well with me. She just says "My bad" and everyone's find with that. Sunset sees the error of her ways and at best. The other students hate her for what she did, and , the Mane 5 tolerate her. She has to earn their forgiveness, it's not just handed to her.


And if you take the comics and books into account, all it takes is a slight breeze and the whole of the school will dig out the torches and pitchforks. (Although in the book, the situation is kind of her fault.)

Headless Horse wrote:
The way I feel about the "fanfic" criticism is this:

Saying an episode is "like a fanfic" isn't, to me, just shorthand for "crappy" or "lazy"—or at least it might be for some people, but not the ones who are trying to make the charge mean something. Rather, it's pointing out specific characteristics of the story or the presentation that you do see exclusively in fanfics, particularly bad ones.

I'm not talking about concepts like "Trixie returns". There's nothing inherently fanficcy about that. What is fanficcy is direct callbacks to specific gags that had felt at the time, in their original appearances, like imaginative one-off stunts meant to show off how wacky and unpredictable the universe is. Case in point would be one fanfic I saw that painstakingly described Twilight reacting to something that made her mad: "Her coat turned white and her eyes became red, and her mane and tail were replaced with bright flames as she hovered several feet above the ground". In other words the text just slavishly described a cartoonish sight gag that nobody watching the original episode (FPK) ought to have understood to be literally what happened, but the fanfic treated it as a literal narrative anyway. And all that does is expose the fanfic as being devoid of the kind of imagination and inventiveness that the writers of the show, who come up with ways to treat concepts like "Trixie returns" that don't feel like retreads of old material, can bring to the table.

So I don't begrudge Magic Duel its use of concepts like Trixie returning for revenge, or Trixie being a neurotic weirdo with a phobia of wheels, or even a gag in which Pinkie loses her mouth to an in-universe Flash animator. Those are pure Larson wackiness. What doesn't feel like it draws from the same creative well are the extremely specific callbacks to previously seen gags, like the parasprite out of nowhere, or Pinkie doing her one-pony-band bit, or the rock farm reference (I kinda wanted Pinkie's past to remain a misty no-man's-land that might be canonically an Amish moonscape of depression or that might all have been bullshit she was making up on the spot, who the hell knows, it's Pinkie Pie). Those gags had their best impact when they came and went and we never saw them again, and the show replaced them with new and more fanciful things like felt-constructed imagination or live-action rubber chickens or a pony who loves to soak in jelly jars. Don't bring those things back! That's the kind of thing that fanfic—and specifically bad fanfic, the kind that doesn't know how to come up with new stuff and can only iterate endlessly on the scriptural canon that's been seen on screen—does.


E: Of course, when an episode manages to reference an old one-off gag and actually make it into something bigger and better—like Flutterguy—then that's something special, something that transcends the "fanficcy" nature of the story. But it's something you can't get away with too often, because it's rare that such a gag can actually be mined for legitimate story material.


I get your point, but my issue is that whenever I see someone write, "This episode was like a fanfic," it's usually used to speak about the episode's plot, cast, or events, not specific running gags or elements of previous episodes. There's no doubt that Magic Duel used a lot of old gags that really didn't work a second time. It also had plot and pacing issues, like Zecora's training being pointless filler and Trixie's redemption being shoved in at the last second. However, neither the use of recycled gags and plot elements, or questionable writing in general, is inherent to only fanfiction. The show has had writing issues since the beginning, as has pretty much every series that is airing now, has aired, or will air in the future. People don't instantly associate terrible artwork with fan art; when someone in the animation department flubs a scene, there aren't complaints that it looks like something a fan artist would draw up. But they will associate a script they don't like, or a synopsis they find displeasing, with fanfiction and treat it like an insult, which it is usually intended to be.

I'm sorry, but I just take umbrage with the crap fanfiction has to take.
InsertAuthorHere
User avatar
Joined: Apr 03, 2013
Gender: Male

Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Thu Jul 30, 2015 2:46 am

Fizzbuzz wrote:Was it actually meaningful, though? That's something about EqG that left a bad taste in my mouth, that her demonic transformation got shrugged off by basically everyone who wasn't her and that she was even allowed to continue to be at that school. Her redemption happened, sure, but it feels to me like it happened more out of necessity (so that EqG could start telling its own stories instead of continuing to be propped up by FiM) than anything else.


Well, most people didn't even remember her for that because they were brainwashed, but they knew she did something bad. It's not that it's best written, far from it, but it feels a little more thought out than anything from the show.

Master_Twig wrote:There's nothing about Equestria Girls that didn't leave a bad taste in my mouth. I view it as a black stain on an otherwise solid franchise. I did watch it and give it a fair chance. There were a lot of plot holes, almost everything surrounding Sunset Shimmer notwithstanding.

"A black stain on an otherwise solid franchise" sounds a bit unfair to me. I really feel like people are just looking deeply for reasons to completely hate it, because honestly while the film is overall mediocre, the worst moments in EQG are very far from the worst moments in FiM.
ShieldedDiamond
User avatar
Rarity's Roughnecks
Joined: Dec 13, 2013

Postby Bremen (?) » Thu Jul 30, 2015 3:07 am

The Doctor wrote:
I think what others think is just as important. That's why Trixie's doesn't sit well with me. She just says "My bad" and everyone's find with that. Sunset sees the error of her ways and at best. The other students hate her for what she did, and , the Mane 5 tolerate her. She has to earn their forgiveness, it's not just handed to her.


I don't necessarily agree with that. All of Trixie's truly evil actions are done while under the influence of the Amulet, unlike Sunset's years of bullying, and Trixie does make a fairly touching apology for them. And how forgiven is she, really? Sure, Twilight makes a show of a reluctant acceptance of the apology, but Twilight is hardly the type to hold a grudge. It doesn't mean everyone's suddenly okay with her; I could easily see her being in a similar position to Sunset at the beginning of RR, where no one forms lynch mobs but she still gets dirty looks, despite deserving it a lot less.

Not that I really want to see Trixie get a serious forgiveness arc; I like her specifically because she's an over the top, humorous jerk character. I just don't see where you're getting that she's some sort of karma Houdini.
Bremen
User avatar
Joined: Oct 09, 2011
Gender: Male

Postby Davyinatoga (?) » Thu Jul 30, 2015 4:38 am

Is this year another consecutive ponyless week that I magically have Saturday off and can't watch a new ep live?! I have only so many of these before my luck runs out, what the heck gives? :seethe:
Image
ImageImageImageImage
Davyinatoga
User avatar
Whoo, the backdraft from last night's chili causing all sorts of havoc tonight!
Semper Pie
Joined: Jul 12, 2011
Location: Country country, USA
Gender: Male

Postby Master_Twig (?) » Thu Jul 30, 2015 4:49 am

ShieldedDiamond wrote:"A black stain on an otherwise solid franchise" sounds a bit unfair to me. I really feel like people are just looking deeply for reasons to completely hate it, because honestly while the film is overall mediocre, the worst moments in EQG are very far from the worst moments in FiM.


I would disagree. I can't think of anything in FiM that I thought was worse than things in EqG, even Mare Do Well and Mystery on the Express (or whatever the episode is called.) But it's not just that the movie was mediocre, it was everything it represented. All the points against Equestria Girls have been made to death in the past so I wont bother repeating them. I just can't find a thing about it that I don't hate. I'm definitely not looking deeply for a reason to hate it. Everything about it just happens to turn me off.

But it's okay if you like it. People have different tastes and I think it's fine that people enjoy it. It's just my opinion that it's the worst thing about MLP by a mile.
Master_Twig
User avatar
Hey look, a bee.
Joined: Feb 18, 2011

Postby Lorce (?) » Thu Jul 30, 2015 5:00 am

Davyinatoga wrote:Is this year another consecutive ponyless week that I magically have Saturday off and can't watch a new ep live?! I have only so many of these before my luck runs out, what the heck gives? :seethe:

Well, there won't be a new episode until later in the year, probably (late) autumn. :-I
Image
Lorce
User avatar
μ
Night Mares
Joined: Feb 04, 2013
Gender: Male

Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Thu Jul 30, 2015 5:46 am

I think that we'll get new episodes in October so it's about a two month wait.

As for EQG, I'm still not a fan of it but I made my peace with the franchise. While it's just not my cup of tea, I understand what it's trying to do and as long as it doesn't interfere with FiM, more power to them.
:plonk: Image :)
ROBOT B9
User avatar
Round and round and round she goes, where she'll stop, nobody knows :pinkietoot:
Semper Pie
Joined: Mar 27, 2012
Location: Albir, Spain
Gender: Male

Postby Wayoshi (?) » Thu Jul 30, 2015 7:21 am

The Outlander wrote:I'm not sure it's even debatable that Sunset Shimmer had the best redemption on the show. She went from one of the most unlikable villains in the show to definite protagonist material. I look forward to her being the main character of the next EqG movie.

If you overlook how rushed and uncharacterized her reform in EqG1 was, then yeah. :-I
Wayoshi
User avatar
Paper Fluttershy
Stare Masters
Joined: Oct 26, 2011
Location: Boston, MA
Gender: Male

Postby Highbrow Dash (?) » Thu Jul 30, 2015 9:53 am

Wayoshi wrote:If you overlook how rushed and uncharacterized her reform in EqG1 was, then yeah. :-I


I'd be friendlier too if I was hit by a magic beam of pure friendship :v:
Image
Highbrow Dash
User avatar
but why would you post such a thing??
Rarity's Roughnecks
Joined: Oct 15, 2011
Location: Spain
Gender: Male

Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Thu Jul 30, 2015 10:45 am

Really, you have to wonder how it would feel to be affected by something like that. It'd be as if a truck full of happy things hit you in the chest.
:plonk: Image :)
ROBOT B9
User avatar
Round and round and round she goes, where she'll stop, nobody knows :pinkietoot:
Semper Pie
Joined: Mar 27, 2012
Location: Albir, Spain
Gender: Male

Postby Headless Horse (?) » Thu Jul 30, 2015 12:20 pm

It was the most realistic depiction of the personal effects of a deus ex machina narrative device ever :v:
Headless Horse
User avatar
The yoke is strictly ornamental
Faithful Students
Joined: May 23, 2011

Postby Dexanth (?) » Thu Jul 30, 2015 9:20 pm

I'd like to see more un-redemption, specifically more of Celestia giving into her urge to cause mischief, because that's inevitably a delight.
:milkshake: Image ImageImage Image
Dexanth
User avatar
Love conquers all
Celestia's Champions
Joined: Oct 23, 2011
Gender: Female

Postby The Doctor (?) » Thu Jul 30, 2015 10:11 pm

Dexanth wrote:I'd like to see more un-redemption, specifically more of Celestia giving into her urge to cause mischief, because that's inevitably a delight.


I'd like to see more Pranklestia, but I don't think they'd ever go so far to have it be mean spirited (nor would I want them to).
The Doctor
User avatar
Turner of all things timey wimey
Celestia's Champions
Joined: May 05, 2011
Location: Time & Space
Gender: Male

Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Thu Jul 30, 2015 11:28 pm

She hardly ever does it herself, if her Gala behavior is anything to go by. Hell, maybe that was her true purpose in freeing Discord. She already delegates important crap to Twilight, so why not delegate silly crap to him? :v:
Image
Fizzbuzz
User avatar
Stare Masters
Joined: Mar 02, 2013
Location: TN
Gender: Male

Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Fri Jul 31, 2015 2:01 am

Dexanth wrote:I'd like to see more un-redemption, specifically more of Celestia giving into her urge to cause mischief, because that's inevitably a delight.

But that would mean making Celestia into an actual character instead of just some plot device that shows up and does something and/or gets captured/depowered. :v:
ShieldedDiamond
User avatar
Rarity's Roughnecks
Joined: Dec 13, 2013

Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Fri Jul 31, 2015 5:33 am

Eh, I think that the writers are making more of an effort to make her well rounded. :pinkieshrug:
:plonk: Image :)
ROBOT B9
User avatar
Round and round and round she goes, where she'll stop, nobody knows :pinkietoot:
Semper Pie
Joined: Mar 27, 2012
Location: Albir, Spain
Gender: Male

Postby Mechanical Ape (?) » Fri Jul 31, 2015 3:49 pm

I'd be down with Celestia turning all Nightmare Sun for an episode or two. :pinkieshrug: Actually I think what I really want is for Nicole Oliver to voice a villain, so however that can be arranged is fine.
Image
Mechanical Ape
User avatar
Here comes her 19th nervous breakdown
Rarity's Roughnecks
Joined: Sep 24, 2011
Gender: Male

Postby Master_Twig (?) » Fri Jul 31, 2015 8:07 pm

I just want more Celestia in general. So much more potential for her character. A Nightmare Sun could be an interesting concept, but it would definitely have to be done correctly. I think it would have to involve a dark force corrupting her rather than something spurned on by negative emotions like was the case with Luna. It just doesn't seem in Celestia's character.

Of course if that was the case it would just be yet another story where Celestia is in trouble and it's up to Twilight to save the day.
Master_Twig
User avatar
Hey look, a bee.
Joined: Feb 18, 2011

Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Fri Jul 31, 2015 8:30 pm

While I'm a hundred and ten percent behind more Celestia, it feels like a Nightmare Sun sort of thing would just feel repetitive.
:plonk: Image :)
ROBOT B9
User avatar
Round and round and round she goes, where she'll stop, nobody knows :pinkietoot:
Semper Pie
Joined: Mar 27, 2012
Location: Albir, Spain
Gender: Male

Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Fri Jul 31, 2015 8:34 pm

I agree. We've already seen Luna being consumed by evil and seen how Twilight and the others saved the day, so doing the same with Celestia just doesn't seem like it'd be all that entertaining.
Image
Fizzbuzz
User avatar
Stare Masters
Joined: Mar 02, 2013
Location: TN
Gender: Male

Postby RudeCyrus (?) » Fri Jul 31, 2015 9:06 pm

There should be an episode where Celestia and Luna just hang around and be sisters.
Image Image
RudeCyrus
User avatar
Makin' meep-morp
Rainbow Racers
Joined: Feb 16, 2011
Location: Lemont, IL
Gender: Male

Postby Octavia (?) » Fri Jul 31, 2015 9:09 pm

I always thought it should've been Celestia and Luna reading the friendship letter at the end of Sisterhooves Social rather than those birds.
Octavia
User avatar
Octavia's Orchestra
Joined: Sep 17, 2011
Location: Chicago, IL
Gender: Male

Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Fri Jul 31, 2015 9:12 pm

rudecyrus wrote:There should be an episode where Celestia and Luna just hang around and be sisters.


This would probably the best option for an episode. :awesomedash:
:plonk: Image :)
ROBOT B9
User avatar
Round and round and round she goes, where she'll stop, nobody knows :pinkietoot:
Semper Pie
Joined: Mar 27, 2012
Location: Albir, Spain
Gender: Male

Postby The Doctor (?) » Fri Jul 31, 2015 9:44 pm

With Big Jim saying they should do a Celestia episode at some point, I'm really not expecting an episode for her in season 6 either.

Hoping we get more small moments from her like S1, S2, and we have been getting in S5 is pretty much as optimistic as I can get.


rudecyrus wrote:There should be an episode where Celestia and Luna just hang around and be sisters.

Just pay IDW and do the Luna Micro comic as an episode. It's half a Celestia story anyways and the whole thing is fantastic. Jim says they haven't had a good idea what to do with her, well, the IDW staff has had plenty of good ideas. Bring them in.
The Doctor
User avatar
Turner of all things timey wimey
Celestia's Champions
Joined: May 05, 2011
Location: Time & Space
Gender: Male

Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Sat Aug 01, 2015 5:43 am

I think that Jim means that the staff really want to do a Celestia episode, they just have to think up of a good storyline. I wouldn't give us hope yet.
:plonk: Image :)
ROBOT B9
User avatar
Round and round and round she goes, where she'll stop, nobody knows :pinkietoot:
Semper Pie
Joined: Mar 27, 2012
Location: Albir, Spain
Gender: Male

Previous Next

Return to Ponies

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Adelor Lyon, Google [Bot] and 1 guest