Are there any positive aspects to appreciate from g4?

[Ponybookworm]

The early days, when every Pony who came out had a pet & either a carrier or another accessory, was my fave part of G4.

Another thing I loved about the early days was we actually had variety in Pony releases. I've yet to see somebody who isn't bored with M6 variants ad nauseum...

The G4 books, especially the G M Berrow books, were awesome!!! Oh if only they'd released more of the Daring Do books as actual books we could read...

I also like the fact a wider audience than just little girls was brought  in to the show. Yep, we all hate the bad influences of certain Bronies, but when a show appeals to a wide demographic you know it's good.

Speaking of shows, though EQG never appealed to me as toys, the DVDs all sit in my collection at home, & I've watched every single one of them.

I don't like the small size, the fact several playsets (barn & school in particular) were just as another poster said "a wall", or the heavier focus on blind bags. I do however like the Guardians of Harmony & the Fashion Style Ponies.

The other thing I don't like is how many characters were NOT made as brushables, eg most of the male characters, Sugarbelle, Amethyst Star & most of the non-Ponies (GOH could have picked up more slack than it did).

[SpacePinto]

Are there any positive aspects to appreciate from g4?

Not to me. I literally wish G4 never existed.

[Baby Crumpet]

I do quite like G4 - they were what got me into collecting, and introduced me to the world of G1, so for that, I will always be thankful to it!

I also was a huge fan of the size of the ponies - though they were way smaller than the G3 ponies I grew up with, they are so easy to display and store. The accessories, back when they came with a few, were absolutely adorable and I loved them! I had a box full of them, and it made setting up scenes with my ponies way easier. My shelves looked really cool, with all these ponies on them in little dioramas!

Blindbags I also really liked - there were lots of unique character designs, and they were very fun to collect. It was blingbags that I learned to customise on! The variety in those little toys - and the early G4 line - was something I grew to love quickly.

Though, it did have its issues. Especially at the end of the line. I stopped buying G4s a few years before they became G4.5s, simply because the quality was so low I could not justify to myself spending that money!! All in all though, I do have a fondness for G4s, and do want to have a roughly complete set of them at some point.

[Leave a Whisper]

I like the water cuties, pearlies and merponies.

[Mrs. Prospector]

Even though I've become more of a G1 fan, there's a lot I love about G4. FIM was a sweet, funny and exciting show until about season 5 or so, then there were a lot of plot points that I thought were really dumb and unnecessary, and overall it just felt like the show overstayed its welcome. But I was a huge fan of FIM, the characters, and their world, I thought it FIM initially was very well done.
Even though I think a huge fandom that arose from the bubbling pits of That One Toxic Anonymous Imageboard was the worst thing to happen to My Little Pony, I'm glad obsessing over ponies became big, because without the G4 fandom, I probably wouldn't have thought about MLP again after the age of 7. I had friends at school in the fandom, and there were a lot of spaces on the internet I went that were more chill and fun than the overall big brony crowd. We got a lot of great art, fics, music, and animations out of it, and a lot of people in this fanbase are genuinely creative and talented people, and I think the characters and universe of FIM provided a great outlet for creativity.
The 2011-2016 toys were pretty cute, I don't really collect them though because all I can find are Mane 6, which are very uninteresting.

[SunPony]

My perspective is based only on the toys and the like...seven or so episodes of the show that I've seen and maybe two comics (actually this applies to all of the generations, I'm way more interested in the toys than the media they came up with to sell them).  I have only the vaguest awareness of some kind of issue with some bronies.  Honestly I'm not even sure if the term applies to all adult fans or just adult male fans or just male fans over a certain age or what.

Anyway! 

I think the blind bags were a good idea because as a kid I loved having a petite pony in my pocket when a regular pony would be too big (you have to have a pony on you at all times, ya know?).  So I think giving kids that option again was a smart move.

I also think the voice acting in the show was quite good, and the show just generally had a very well put together feel.  I also got the feeling that the FiM show was marginally less cheesy (not sure that is the right word) than the earlier shows.  Hopefully this trend will continue...

[brightberry]

I do still like the blind bag ponies though I have more than I ever wanted.

I did like the first two seasons of the cartoon.  But once all the characters had been fleshed out, the episodes got painfully repetitive and even bizarre.  I lost interest.

I also do not agree that kids should try to be friends with people who take advantage of, verbally abuse and shame them.  How many kids are going to grow up feeling like it’s their fault an abuser hurt them?  There is a difference between reaching out to someone and taking abuse from someone toxic.  This can lead to so many mental health issues down the road.  Self care should have been a part of FIM.

However, I do love the Wedding Episode.

[otocolobus_manul]

Almost everything. The only downside to me is that, thanks to Hasbro’s cheap business strategy, the toyline didn’t live up to how incredible the show was (but really, what could?). So many characters never made in toy form, so many cool locations that would’ve made awesome playsets ignored or not given justice, so many cool ideas that could have made better gimmicks than what we got (“sparkly spinning skirt”, really?). For being a glorified commercial made to sell toys, FiM didn’t end up having much to do with the toyline. So many missed opportunities.

[Sunset]

The Pegasus wings on the playful sized ponies are very sweet.  Just the right proportions, not too clunky and very cute.

I have very mixed feelings about the blind bags.  On the one hand, I wish that Hasbro hadn’t decided to concentrate all of the “collectibility” of the line into the blind bag sized ponies to the detriment of the brushables.  However, I loved the FIM collection.  This is mostly because of the train.  I loved the train because I have spent a lot of time assisting my parents with their massive Christmas train display.  So the combination of the train and the FIM collection allowed me to make my own 8 foot pony train display.  Though I do agree that three dimensional play sets would have been even more ideal.  I really wish they had gotten around to doing Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash’s houses.  Or at least Fluttershy’s with extra animal friends.

G4 is also the only generation so far to give us a carousel for the brushables.  (G1 had one for the petites.). But really, a carousel for ponies just makes so much sense that I can’t believe it isn’t a standard play set for every generation.  I’d have preferred for the g4 set to be even bigger and more traditional carousel shaped.  (I even bought an old matchbox carousel several years ago to customize for the g4 pones but I’ve never gotten around to working on it.)

I appreciate the inclusion of the hippogriffs.  I personally would have preferred they were more on model with the ponies with their own symbols but I really appreciate that Hasbro was willing to try out some other brushable toys past the usual earth, unicorn, Pegasus, and “mermaid” pony that they have done in every generation.

In regards to the show:
When I first saw it, I really loved it.  It was clearly aimed at a slightly older audience than the g3 specials which I appreciated.  While I have watched every episode, it really did become something of a chore in the later seasons, with a few bright spots.  I have always characterized myself as more of a collector/fan of the brand rather than a fan of the show.

But things I like specifically about the show:

The songs!  There are very few of the songs that I don’t like.  The more songs the better, I always say 😆

The walking and running cycles are really nice.  I appreciate that someone actually researched how a horse walks/runs.

The Kirin.  I really wish that we had gotten some Kirin toys and I hope that they make it into G5.

[SunPony]

The Pegasus wings on the playful sized ponies are very sweet.  Just the right proportions, not too clunky and very cute.

I just came back to comment on the same thing that I had forgotten to before!  Yes, the pegasuses...pegasi...pegusus? toys in G4 have the best wings, in size and shape, of any of the generations imho!

[Leave a Whisper]

I like the wing shapes too

[Ponyfan]

I don't like the cartoon with its endless friendship preaching; Twilight being told to put her books away and go out and make friends is a bit too painfully autobiographical for me,

I can relate to this too.

Every kid develops at their own speed and in their own way, but the last thing that any child needs is to be told by a tv show they're watching that they're not behaving 'normally' because they don't want to go out and have parties. More bothersome to me is the idea of "if you're nice to bad people they will become your friend" and "you can make friends with anyone if you try hard enough." One is dangerous, two is just not true. But not liking someone is not the same as not respecting someone, and having different perspectives is not a bad thing. Will never forget that horrible episode where Pinkie and Dash destroy an important cultural artefact in the Gryffin's territory and then say it doesn't matter because now they have the more precious notion of friendship instead.

...So many issues.

I wish FIM would have left Diamond Tiara as a bully.  It was realistic that there was a pony that just didn’t like Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Applebloom and was mean to them. Instead Diamond Tiara was reformed by the 3 ponies continuing to be nice to her.

Ponyfan

[Leave a Whisper]

As much as we complain about FiM shoving Friendship down people's throats, I suddenly realise that its kind of unfair and hypocritical when many of us grew up in the peak era for cartoons that shoved morals, pet care, safety messages, and PSAs in little kid's faces.

I don't claim to know what other countries were doing with their programs, so maybe you guys had less preachy toons.

But here in the US we grew up with cartoons telling us lot of stuff like don't do drugs, don't run away from home, always wear a life jacket, don't steal cars, clean up litter, always tell a trusted adult if you're being abused, guns arent toys.

And Hasbro has at least 5 shows that did this in some way or another.

GI Joe
Transformers
Jem and the Holograms
C.O.P.S
My Little Pony Tales


I guess they're just continuing that grand holdover tradition of ham-fisted moralizing. 

[kittyhasnosoul]

(I am biased, because I love g4 so much.)

I liked the show the best! I love getting to know the characters in depth. Something that's lacking for me with the other generations is lack of movies, shows, etc for me to watch. I love watching pony movies, and just relaxing while seeing some colorful horses do wholesome things. What I didn't like was the fandom When I was into FiM as a young child, I got into the brony fandom as a result, and it messed me up, I was isolated and only talked to older adults. I think the brony fanbase was a dangerous part of FiM and I wish it hadn't came with the awesome show.

As far as the toys, I prefer other generations. The toys are too small for me in g4.

[Taffeta]

As much as we complain about FiM shoving Friendship down people's throats, I suddenly realise that its kind of unfair and hypocritical when many of us grew up in the peak era for cartoons that shoved morals, pet care, safety messages, and PSAs in little kid's faces.

I think you forgot Captain Planet. xD.

Thundercats, watching that again as an adult, also seemed a lot more preachy than I remember from when I was a kid...

Jem. I'm gonna put my comments on this in spoilers because it may ramble and it's a bit OT..

Spoiler

I discovered at a later point that in the US Jem aired with these "do the right thing" clips at the end of episodes. And they sometimes ended here. And one of them I am sure is road safety and basically told kids in the Uk to go walk in front of traffic...>.> But hey, FIM tells kids to go drink alcohol, since cider here is generally alcoholic. SO! Yay for that.

But on the subject of Jem, I HATE the attitude towards illiteracy in Roxy Rumbles. I grew up with a friend who had serious dyslexia and struggled so hard with reading. He was super smart and I think he now works in computer programming. But still. Here's this patronising episode where JATH butt their middle class noses into a community, patronise them by insulting their abilities and then basically don't do anything to help, but do mess up Roxy's already messed up situation a bunch more with their interference. I think it says everything that it's ten year old BaNee who is the only one adult and mature enough to reach out to Roxy to help her. Seriously.

There's also serious political irony in the Presidential Dilemma, which is an episode about the FBI trying to shut down and confiscate Synergy as a security risk and basically getting in JATH's way on a grand scale. And then the ep ends with a song called "Freedom". Which seems like it should be tongue in cheek, but I don't think it was meant to be...

All that stuff aside - and the random gratuitous violence, awkward representations of other cultures and occasional hero complex males needing to save the girls from themselves, though, I have more of a problem with FIM because of its emphasis on friendship in particular.

Growing up as an undiagnosed autistic kid in the eighties and nineties had a lot of challenges, the biggest of which were bullies. And people I tried to be nice to to get them to leave me alone, and you know what happens? You get more bullied. And having been through the experience of learning that you can't make friends with everyone the hard way...and having had to learn manually from scratch to "conform and fit in" because society really can't be bothered with adapting to difference...FIM just bothers me. It feeds the wrong ideas about friendship. Whereas on the other hand you have Monster High which was continuously pushing the idea, it doesn't matter if you're different, we're all different, share your differences and be quirky and weird. (Just random small details like the fact Rochelle can't swim because she's a gargoyle and so made of stone...)

Well, I was (and probably still am) quirky and weird. But I was basically made to feel ashamed of that my whole childhood by the kind of mindset that FIM also puts out. And based on the fact that some (not all) of the brony community in those early days interpreted everything FIM said as gospel...you had incidents of brony on brony crime against people who expressed a different opinion on something in the show that "went against the values of friendship". So whatever it was preaching was missing the point in that community as well.

I don't think it meant to be problematic, I just don't think they thought in depth about the real implications of some of the messages. And I'd actually rather deal with Jem's infomercial about how to get splatted. >.>

That said, I worked with a lot of autistic kids who adored FIM. And in a sense that also worried me, because of the idealised image of friendship it provided was not the reality they experienced outside of the show :/ .

Going back on topic, I also really like the merbabies, they're adorable and one of the nicest nonbrushable parts of the line. The FIM ponies are generally really cute. I just wish they happened without the show.