Unpopular Pony Opinions

[Taffeta]

I guess this is gonna be unpopular then, but I like EqG much more than FIM. Even though I completely concede that the wider plots in the EqG specials are predictable and mostly the same plot recycled, I feel like the character development makes up for it. In the three seasons of FIM I watched I didn't see any character development (except Luna who flipped magically from being scary to being nice but awkward pretty much overnight...). But Sunset Shimmer in the EqG has evolved as a character. And that makes the whole thing - even the backup M6 - much easier for me to stomach.

I also really like the old dolls. They look so silly and geeky and weird that I just love them . The newer ones are fine but I still can't leave the old EqG dolls at carboot sales or in charity shops if I know I don't have them xD.

...I guess I'm just weird.

But as a kid I hated megan. I was super jealous she got to go to ponyland, so actively avoided asking for her and sundance. I basically shunned Sundance because I couldn't get her without the doll

[Nemesis]

I loved this concept as a kid because I was often daydreaming about being a Chosen One, getting transported into a fantasy world and getting to be part of the action. Neverending Story was my favorite childhood book.

^
This exactly! That was my favorite kind of storyline as a child. ^_^

As for Equestria Girls, I doubt the franchise could survive without the characters/names/history of MLP. I don’t care much for the mundane story elements (school, sports, the aforementioned field trips...), but I like the general idea of parallel-dimension-human-versions-of-magical-ponies, lol. I think my childhood nostalgia goes straight to thoughts of the Unicorn turning into Lady Amalthea in The Last Unicorn, which I used to watch over and over again. As a kid, I would have just ignored the EQG fiction and made up my own epic, high fantasy adventures for the dolls. Actually... that’s still kind of what I do in my head canon.

[Taffeta]

EqG also inherited the mantle of Jem, hence Rainbow Rocks. I figure Hasbro decided it was safer to throw that franchise into the more stable MLP one than try to reboot it on its own.

[Nemesis]

Taffeta: Awwww... It’s kind of adorable that your childhood self was aggressively jealous of Megan. X3 I used to just pretend I WAS Megan, lol. I think that’s probably why the writers included her (and Molly and Danny) in the franchise to begin with—so that kids would have a “proxy” in Ponyland. They seem to have gotten the opposite reaction from your poor, younger self though. *hugs*

The pseudo-Jem revival for Rainbow Rocks WAS pretty awesome! Definitely not a doll line I ever thought was going to exist, lol.

[Ponyfan]

I like the Dazzlelings songs better in RR than Twilight's and her friends.


Ponyfan

[Carrehz]

I'm not really interested in the cartoons or anything, but I LOVE the original EQG dolls!!! Took me a while to warm up to them, but once I did, I was hooked. :p Can't stand the new ones, though.

[Taffeta]

Taffeta: Awwww... It’s kind of adorable that your childhood self was aggressively jealous of Megan. X3

Yeah Thankfully she was rarely in the comics. Five year old me passionately believed ponyland was over the rainbow and deeply resented that Megan got to visit it when I didn't. Six or seven year old me realised that maybe there wasn't really a ponyland...but I never really forgave Megan, even though by then I realised she was also fictional

I wasn't a big doll person as a kid but I do wonder if I would have been less hostile to TAF Megan and Sundance if we had had that set - as it would've been on sale after I realised ponyland wasn't real (xD) - but we never had any more Megan and Sundance sets after I was 5, so we'll never know.

I have the dolls now, but I admit they are rather shoved away in the cupboard. I do adore Megan and Sundance wear though.

[MJNSEIFER]

I loved this concept as a kid because I was often daydreaming about being a Chosen One, getting transported into a fantasy world and getting to be part of the action.

I honestly think that this was the point of Megan (and later her siblings) in the show, like it was meant to make us imagine that we could be the next one who gets taken to Ponyland, and hang out with our new ponyfriends.

I don't mind The Williams kids, but at least one other has said, they got it backwards with who is guiding who - Megan basically looked after the ponies, when they should have been guiding her through their world.

I wish Hasbro would separate the franchises and just make a Magical Girl line that isn't supposed to be MLP in human costume.
They could just keep all the character tropes and color coding. Magical Girls are not exactly hard to sell.

This has been my opinion for a while - they should have just made it a separate toyline/cartoon series, they didn't need to make it a My Little Pony spin-off, it was like they were scared that no one would like it unless it was vaguely pony related.

[Taffeta]

I think it is the opposite. They moved deliberately away from Jem reboot to put the concept into mlp because barbie successfully killed jem in the eighties and at the time eqg came out MH were top of their game. To compete Hasbro connected some of the Jem ideas to mlp which was a franchise less easy to demolish.

It upset the Jem community at the time though...the battle of the bands setup at the end of RR is so obviously inspired by the first clash of Jem and the Misfits...

If it was just magical girl they would not need to be in a band.

[Zapper]

If it was just magical girl they would not need to be in a band.

That band thing took form in the second movie and then they just carried on with it because teen girls can't be heroes of Humans...tria, or what ever their mirror world is called. But yeah, as much as I liked Rainbow Rocks I also thought "yup, that's Jem. Why is there no actual Jem?".

There are a few Magical Girl franchises that tried it with the band theme, tho. Just sticking with Western ones, Loli Rock and Star Darlings come to mind. Or the Japanese OG - the Starlights from Sailor Moon who disguised themselves as a popular boy band  I am sure there is more with music stuff but I am not that well versed in current anime. Anyhoo, they could be a band of magical girls in a new fantasy world inspired by Equestria. Like, have unicorns roam around and through their music they harness the unicorn magic. Whatevs, I just don't want to see their tiny arms anymore once we roll into G5

[Taffeta]

Haha xD
I think the reason I am fine with EqG is that I don't like FIM. So it doesn't jar me at all because for me FIM is a non-thing and they kind of then stand alone? Albeit the most recent special had them running through Twilight's castle so that was a bit interesting. Even so, I admit it's all for love of Sunset Shimmer on my part

I think the band probably is what you said - except they only use it to be 'famous' sporadically. I think it's more a thing to keep them all gelled together as they have so little actually in common as characters otherwise. It definitely began with Jem for Rainbow Rocks but I remember the Jem community making the connection before EqG came out. The old Jem fandom list I was a member of which has now gone had strong connections with people involved in Jem and with Hasbro at one time or another, so I guess there was a reason why that link was made - but I don't know what it was. Just that it was a big topic of conversation there before Rainbow Rocks.

I would be happy to see them go in G5 if it means G5 have a new cast. I am pretty cool with things ending at the end of generations - what I am afraid of is being stuck with pinkie pie forever now. And if it meant getting rid of her for all eternity, I would happily abandon EqG tomorrow

(So long as I can keep my sunset dolls. One of them is very good at holding my to do lists on my desk).

[SpacePinto]

I think the reason I am fine with EqG is that I don't like FIM. So it doesn't jar me at all because for me FIM is a non-thing and they kind of then stand alone? Albeit the most recent special had them running through Twilight's castle so that was a bit interesting. Even so, I admit it's all for love of Sunset Shimmer on my part

I never liked EqG but TBH I think it's much better than FiM because at least Hasbro is honest here about giving their audience lanky big-eyed animesque schoolgirls without trying to disguise them as ponies

[Leave a Whisper]

I think the reason I am fine with EqG is that I don't like FIM. So it doesn't jar me at all because for me FIM is a non-thing and they kind of then stand alone? Albeit the most recent special had them running through Twilight's castle so that was a bit interesting. Even so, I admit it's all for love of Sunset Shimmer on my part

I never liked EqG but TBH I think it's much better than FiM because at least Hasbro is honest here about giving their audience lanky big-eyed animesque schoolgirls without trying to disguise them as ponies

[Taffeta]

I think the reason I am fine with EqG is that I don't like FIM. So it doesn't jar me at all because for me FIM is a non-thing and they kind of then stand alone? Albeit the most recent special had them running through Twilight's castle so that was a bit interesting. Even so, I admit it's all for love of Sunset Shimmer on my part

I never liked EqG but TBH I think it's much better than FiM because at least Hasbro is honest here about giving their audience lanky big-eyed animesque schoolgirls without trying to disguise them as ponies

This is also true!

I should also clarify my standards a bit here. For anyone familiar with Jem, one of my favourite episodes is the ShangriLa one. It's complete nonsense. Jem and the Holograms go hunting in the himalayas for the secret music of ShangriLa (!?!) and the misfits go to stop them, get poisoned by brambles, saved by a yeti...and yeah. On top of which the animation is extremely weak in that episode which makes it doubly hilarious. All of it is totally stupid given that this is, essentially, a 'real world' setting, for all Synergy is mad tech for the eighties.

But in seriousness, though the plot is terrible, the animation is terrible, and it's so bad it's laughable...it contains some of the absolute best character moments between the Misfits of the whole series. And as a Misfit fan, I totally lap that stuff up.

...So on balance, EqG is ridiculous, repetitive, unbelievable...and full of cliches. And at one point they also tell the audience that it's better to have the most popular people chosen for stuff rather than a meritocracy, which I don't think is the real point...?

I love EqG entirely for the character development of first Sunset and then SciTwi. The plots can be stupid. The support cast predictable. I don't care. And most of the music by the Rainbooms also sucks. (But then so do some of Jem's, including the ShangriLa song). But the character play between Sunset and SciTwi in Everfree and Sunset and the band in Rainbow Rocks appeals to me <3. Sometimes the little moments make up for the big hot mess...

...Is that an unpopular opinion? I like EqG even though I think it has rubbish plotlines?

[Leave a Whisper]

Any merchandise that is Mane Six is not new and I don't care who thinks I'm in the wrong. I'm starting to get to the point where I hate this brand. It went from amazing to awful in the space of one generation. Why Hasbro is so bent on killing this once amazing beloved franchise is beyond me?