Imagine the Mane 6 went back in time and came back with a retro twist!

[Carrehz]

yeah, I get where the Surprise thing came from but it's still weird to see it explained like that. If it had been me I probably would've put "inspired by Surprise and Pinkie Pie" or something.

[banditpony]

Can someone post the pictures from that hasbro.com page? It insists on redirecting me to the Norwegian version of the page, which uh, doesn't exist

I wonder if you can redirect if you can find that little region thing on the top right of any page. It's just going to the MLP page, then the retro squad.

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


visitors can't see pics , please register or login

[Luxrayx]

Can someone post the pictures from that hasbro.com page? It insists on redirecting me to the Norwegian version of the page, which uh, doesn't exist

Here we go Let me know if you still have problems seeing them

Thank you! The redesigned symbols are really nice - they could've easily gotten away with less effort, but decided to go the extra mile for once. I hope all this recent retro hype is an indication for what G5 is going to be like.
Or maybe they'll acknowledge G2 instead hahaha who am I kidding

[Taffeta]

yeah, I get where the Surprise thing came from but it's still weird to see it explained like that. If it had been me I probably would've put "inspired by Surprise and Pinkie Pie" or something.

The Faust input is actually really important. They're not inspired by the G1 ponies, they're constructed by a fan of the G1 ponies in the way she saw them. That's not invalid, but it's different from what Hasbro's written on their site. That's telling whoever that site is aimed at (and it isn't us) that that was how it was in G1. It wasn't. It's also forcing the idea of a single canon in which characters were a certain way - rather than celebrating the imagination behind giving your own characters to ponies - which is what G1's biggest strength was, with it's multiple canons. Everyone could create ponyland, nobody would be 'wrong', because there wasn't a 'rule'.

So they're not based on the appearances (except AJ, and maybe Glory for Rarity) and they're not based on the G1 personalities. And Hasbro clearly don't want to credit 'the imagination of Lauren Faust' for whatever reasons. So yeah.

It's semantic but it's something I have a problem with in G4 vs G1 in general. We just take the multiple canons plus our own headcanons for granted, but then you see conversations in which "Majesty WAS x in G1" and so on, and yeah, in some places, she was. But in some places, she wasn't. And in some kids' heads she was something else. (Mine was mad and senile and ran riot round the castle while Sapphire tried to keep order as regent, but that's another matter). The point is these were toys not tied to a single 'interpretation' and the cartoon, comic, cards etc were meant as a spark point for kids to create from, if they wanted, not a 'canon' to enslave them to.

But the fact they call the original 6 ponies mane 6 kind of proves they don't care about detail.

Weird that it doesn't load in Norway...I can load it here in the UK fine.

[Dragonflitter]

It makes me feel like this page is meant for brony fans/fans of G4 who might get into G1 and G3 is notoriously unpopular in that fandom. I'm not talking about the crazy brony fans, I'm talking about the general G4 fans.

Ah yes that's true! The page really looks like they're trying to pull current fans into liking the older gen, and then market that older gen to them. Hmm... I wonder if this 'retro' line will become G5? That would be very weird but nothing Hasbro does anymore would surprise me.

It's semantic but it's something I have a problem with in G4 vs G1 in general. We just take the multiple canons plus our own headcanons for granted, but then you see conversations in which "Majesty WAS x in G1" and so on, and yeah, in some places, she was. But in some places, she wasn't. And in some kids' heads she was something else. (Mine was mad and senile and ran riot round the castle while Sapphire tried to keep order as regent, but that's another matter). The point is these were toys not tied to a single 'interpretation' and the cartoon, comic, cards etc were meant as a spark point for kids to create from, if they wanted, not a 'canon' to enslave them to.

I think that's just how kids franchises are represented these days, it's not really 'G1 versus G4' it's more 'modern marketing versus older marketing'. Most toys these days that are trying to be a franchise are introducing the kids to the world and the characters, so they can feel included and feel like they know the things going on in that franchise.

I remember before that new Disney cartoon Vampirina even aired, I already saw toys on the shelves. And the commercials that advertised it as "coming soon" were like a little "introduction" to the show with a 'meet the characters' kind of thing. Kids get really excited when they can tell you about all the things they know from their favorite show.

[Taffeta]

I think with ponies it is G1 v G4 (I don't mean that in a confrontational sense, more a comparative style sense). In the eighties you had Jem, which was centred around the cartoon (that unfortunately for Hasbro was much more successful and cult than the doll line, but which was designed as the glue to that doll line). We don't know with Jem what would've happened beyond the third year projected, and we only know from prototype info what year 3 would've contained, but there was a much stronger show/toy relationship there. Maybe because it's humanoid? I dunno.

Then you had SheRa, which did a similar kind of thing to G4 except forgot to release some of the core characters xD. By which I mean the show circled around mostly the same characters on good and bad side, plus imports from the bad side of MOTU (Hordak etc), but then had a bunch of toys who maybe got one ep (like fringe G4 characters) before never appearing again (Perfuma, Mermista, Netossa, etc).

What neither Jem nor SheRa did was fall into the trap of only releasing the exact same stuff. Even the projected stuff for 1988 for Jem ditched the Misfits bar Pizzazz (boo hiss xD) and included the Stingers (introduced in Stingers Hit Town), Regine and Astral (each had 1 episode) alongside a couple of new Jem herself dolls (unavoidable if annoying). I forget what else because I can't remember where Graphix came in, I think she was scrapped earlier. (Jem of course also had fashions). SheRa did have a few releases of SheRa and Catra but forgot to release Madame Razz, Broom...Cowl? Did he get released? And Shadow Weaver...all core to the animation plot.

With MLP it seems like they did the TV show, realised they didn't need it to sell the toys so stopped and then kind of forgot about it, sold ponies with backcards and the occasional book (over here comics but I'm thinking in terms of all angles, including the US) then came back to TV for MLP Tales for whatever reason (see other thread xD). So instead of trying to guide the canon through a connected show, you had the backcards. Totally different from both Jem and SheRa. The humanoid aspect may be the biggest part of that, but I think it's a striking difference WITHIN MLP itself to go from that scattered canon of multiple possibilities to a static canon of one possibility and multiple variations on the same theme.

In short, I'm saying it's not rare or unusual to have a core cast even in the eighties, or to hang the toyline off it. It just wasn't usual for MLP then and is now.

Let's not forget Monster High had its TV specials, and its shorts, but also had the diaries in the boxes (though in Europe those were quite useless thanks to multiple languages truncating the content) so the kids could construct their own canon, rather like G1 MLP. The show DVDs were there but MH never aired as a TV series. I've seen specials on TV here, but it's a DVD release thing, so not something you'll accidentally skip onto. True, the YT shorts maybe counteract that, but it's still interesting as MH is not on netflix (even when EAH and EQG are). At least not here.

Then on the flipside you have Miraculous Ladybug which is great with the show...terrible at connecting the merchandise and products xd.