Unpopular Pony Opinions

[Taffeta]

I still don't understand why some people insist that categorizing generations by animation only came with G4.

Some people are right here And I don't "insist" on it, I observed it first hand. What a single person like you thought before Bronies came around doesn't matter in this argument. None of you tried to fight these fandom categories as they did and still do.

It was the G4 fans who populized the "Tales is really G2" stuff ignoring what the older fans said. It simply makes things more confusing if you refer to a G1 toyselling vehicle as G2 just because it's a secondary show. "Tales" is a great way to refer to it, that's literally what the show is called.
G1 ran for a couple of years and in Tales a bunch of later G1 ponies were featured, not a single G2. Tales wasn't about Sky Skimmer and Ivy.

Agree with Zapper.

I came into this community in 1997-8. At that time the term G2 didn't even exist.

The term G2 didn't exist until G3 happened, at which point the community figured out what they wanted to call it.

Even when it was just G1 and G2 (and they were called old ponies and new ponies), the thing is that nobody defined G1 by the animated series.

But see, I can root this in something more because the most common term for the characters that star in the MLP Tales series is what? Tales ponies, right? That's not technically correct. They're actually Seven Characters. That's how they were marketed. BUT in the US they weren't ever sold, and the US was the bulk of the original community (more so than it is now). So they got referred to as Tales ponies. And when the US (and some Canadian) fans discovered the ponies existed in Europe, they got known as Tales ponies for reference.

But the ponies that were sold at this time are all G1 ponies, some of which had been out for a while already, and had appeared in other, more traditional G1-centric material. So Tales ponies = G1 ponies. Case closed.

G2 was out at the time these discussions about Tales ponies actually existing happened, but nobody associated Tales ponies to anything but G1. Ever.

Sorry to pull history on you - but the fact remains that defining MLP by animation came with G4, and has been perpetuated by G4. One or two people misunderstanding what the G terms mean is not a history of classifying generations by animation.

We all knew that was impossible because G2 didn't have any animation.

The other thing is what the G terms refer to.

MLP was defined by toyline until FIM happened, because, until FIM happened, MLP was a toy and cartoons were made to sell toys. Now FIM is also made to sell the show itself, the merchandise, and a lot of other things that are not the traditional 'toy' we think of with older generations. Maybe we might have subdivided G1 more if we had known there was more coming, but it didn't happen that way. So we didn't do it. It was a way to distinguish three separate toy line releases. The original old ponies, the new ponies, and then the new new ponies. Or G1, G2, and G3 for ease of comprehension.

Even if there had been a mass movement in 2006 to label Tales as G2 (which there wasn't, as I was here, and so were a lot of other people, and we'd have noticed), it would still have been anachronistic in the same way it is to do it now, because of the reason stated above. The terms were already defined by 2006 and in full usage. Nobody was challenging them.

Because G1, G2, and G3 were terms identified by fans for toylines, obviously the fans didn't then have conflicting terms for the animation. Because the animation wasn't that all important to any of the toy lines, it was just one part of a bigger collection of advertising methods used in G1 and G3 but not G2 (except for some animated commercials) to sell toys.

The argument simply doesn't gel.

[Leave a Whisper]

I still don't understand why some people insist that categorizing generations by animation only came with G4. When I first got back into ponies in 2006, I soon discovered that the new ponies with short muzzles who giggled a lot were called G3s but I was confused by Tales which reminded me of the ponies from my childhood and yet was so different, so when I picked up all the mentions of "G2" which most people apparently hated for being so different, I figured it referred to MLPT since it indeed was quite different from the earlier show and it seemed like I was one of the few people who actually liked it, so I soon just came to the conclusion that G1 must have meant the first show with Wind Whistler, Fizzy etc., G2 was Tales and G3 was the "new" (at the time) ponies. Of course some time later I also discovered those weird ponies that looked like nothing else and had no cartoon at all, and soon I realized how it actually worked, but to this day I like to think that MLPT is either an animated adaptation of the G1 toyline or the G2 animated canon.

The difference is, you got confused but eventually sorted it out. You weren't being willfully ignorant or refusing to listen to others.

I thought G3 was the new generation of ponies for the first time since the 80s since I literally never saw the Friendship Garden ponies in stores at all and didn't realize they existed. Then I discovered Dream Valley and found out about those too.

[Zapper]

I thought G3 was the new generation of ponies for the first time since the 80s since I literally never saw the Friendship Garden ponies in stores at all and didn't realize they existed. Then I discovered Dream Valley and found out about those too.

Heck, I thought G2 ponies were an LPS line... lol! Yes, "My Little Pony" was on the cards and they had symbols and were rainbow colors but they were also made by Kenner like LPS at that time and had similar gimmicks.
So I referred to them as "LPS ponies" until I discovered the online fan community (at that time G3 was leaving shelves and so generations had been established and I switched quickly to that so people would know what the heck I was talking about)
Had I called them "LPS ponies" people would have thought I was talking about a pony from LPS.

[brightberry]

I was there for the first two specials and My Little Pony and Friends.  I'd never heard of Tales.  I did notice the new ponies who were made by Kenner, packaged differently, looked different, lived in Friendship Gardens and none of the old molds were in sight.  In fact, they'd been gone for some time. It was pretty clear that G2 was a reboot even if they never had a cartoon.  It was a turning point in My Little Pony history that's acknowledged by calling it the second generation.  Saying otherwise is attempting to rewrite history.

[Taffeta]

I never saw most of the G1 animation as a kid - I had 4 eps on vhs - till they aired all of G1's animation on one of the cable channels in 1995 and my sister's best friend at the time was taping them. Naynie borrowed the tapes and then I got to see all of them.

They aired them from RaMC through to the end of Tales and then began the cycle again.

1995 predates G2 by 2 years. 3 years in the UK.

Nuff said really.

For me personally, though, it makes even less sense because the Tales ponies were featured in the UK pony comics. From around issue 201 they switched from traditional G1 stories to Tales stories. They didn't launch a new comic to recognise some new storyline or style, they just transitioned. As I mentioned before, the Rockin' Beats appeared prior to this shift and also after this shift and nobody even blinked. The Rockin' Beats were still on sale here alongside the Tales ponies during the early 1990s as well. Half Note is in the same mould as Starlight and Melody.

The thing is, there are many things you can interpret in your own way (like how a pony is, what their personality is, what story you want to follow, what gender they are, how they are related, etc etc). But then there are factual issues that arise when you try to rewrite something to force it into a place it doesn't fit.

I think that, if you know that G2 is a toyline and you know what it is, you're only feeding the trolls if you continue to think/talk about Tales as G2 in animation terms. For me it's just ridiculous because it was made to sell a toyline that came out during G1.

[cloud_weaver]

Whoo....I see I missed a long lengthy conversation! Since when did the Tales Cartoon get labeled G2?

As someone who grew up watching both the original show and a tales, I can tell you they were interchangeable on my cable network! And well before G2’s!

I remember hearing the announcement of the G2 release, and a few years after production had stopped on G1’s.  (All pre-“G1 and G2 labels”). I was ecstatic!   But never once lumped the newer style ponies with the original styles.

On an off handed, but on-topic note -
 
*i dislike the CP ponies, for some reason I think they look bloated, and unflattering

*I LOVE tinsel! All day long, give me Ponies with Tinsel in their hair!

*i always found So Softs masculine looking. They were always the grandpa’s in my herds.

[Leave a Whisper]

I like Potion Nova's colors and symbol. Just not that mould. Is it wrong that I kinda want her, JUST because she's a new character?

[TheBeatlesPkmnFan42]

Is it wrong that I kinda want her, JUST because she's a new character?

Definitely not! I'm like this with every non-Mane 6 G4.

[Leave a Whisper]

Is it wrong that I kinda want her, JUST because she's a new character?

Definitely not! I'm like this with every non-Mane 6 G4.

Yeah but...but that HEAD!!   

Shame retro Pinkie's and Rarity's hair is too dark. They'd make good custom bases for Nova Potion.

[tailrustedtealeaf]

Good thinking on the cross-gen custom. She does look very bald in the package, I'm hoping it's just the hair color blending in.

[Leave a Whisper]

Good thinking on the cross-gen custom. She does look very bald in the package, I'm hoping it's just the hair color blending in.

Yeah.

[CloudyGlow]

G4 is G3.5 done correctly. G3.5 created the non-pony ponies, G4 just fixed them to be appealing.

[SunbeamV]

I actually like the new designs in their regular size. Potion Nova and the new Trixie with starry-looking eyes actually sparked some of the same wonder and joy I felt for new ponies when I was a kid.

[Leave a Whisper]

I wish some of the really popular and expensive ponies were widely disliked and cheap, so I could grab them with ease.

[Taffeta]

I wish some of the really popular and expensive ponies were widely disliked and cheap, so I could grab them with ease.

I am sure that's a popular opinion