Are there any positive aspects to appreciate from g4?

[Leave a Whisper]

I was gonna mention Captain Planet, but that's in a league  all on its own.

And yeah I agree with you, their idea of friendship is toxic and unrealistic. I agree with you about being nice to bullies. It never ever works. That's not to say that they can't mature and grow as people and realize they were being little...you-know-whats later, but that doesn't help the people they harmed.

[SpacePinto]

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.

Yeah, but at least these are all lessons that are actually very useful to children in real life, instead of just preaching again and again about being nice to your friends.

[ChocolateStarfire]

Speaking here as a non-Brony but someone who enjoys G4...

I feel like the G4 toys were...meh, if I am going to be brutally honest. The original brushables were the best, and the Build-a-Bears and blind bags were cute, but the rest...the continuous re-releases of the Mane 6, the over the top gimmicks, were not my cup of tea as a collector.

The show MLP:FiM was touching--I could relate to the characters in the first and second seasons, and again in the end of the show altogether. I feel that the series was dragged out and some characters, like Daring Do, were a phone in, rather than a true addition to the storyline. The music was beautiful, if anything the songs were what kept the story decent in many episodes over the years. Some of the messages of the show are problematic--making friends is not easy for some people, and being bullied is a part of life, and yeah life is hard sometimes given grief, separation and death. Some of these concepts were not addressed, but that is on the team that put the story together, not on fans of the show swaying it one way or another.

I do feel that the character development was far stronger with G4 than with previous gens. I think that attachment to the characters is what helped the show and ponies stay around for so long.

I think making toys and cartoons for said toys is hard. It's hard to have the team fall into place the way things did in the 90s with TMNT and Ghostbusters and Transformers and Power Rangers. It's hard to get people interested in the toys and the story. I think G4 did a pretty good job considering it lasted for nearly a decade before being phased out, and that is something nobody can deny.

I just hope future shows and toys for kids are as insightful and cool, if not better, than G4 (and G1!) was for many.

[Leave a Whisper]

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.

Yeah, but at least these are all lessons that are actually very useful to children in real life, instead of just preaching again and again about being nice to your friends.

Well that is a good lesson. If you treat the people who care about you like crap, you'll end up with no one, or they'll tell you where you can shove it and to change your attitude before it gets to that point.

Its being nice to your enemies or trying to force everyone to be like you without bothering to understand them, that's the issue. But even the first two cartoons had ponies forgiving a good chunk of their enemies.

[ChocolateStarfire]

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.

Yeah, but at least these are all lessons that are actually very useful to children in real life, instead of just preaching again and again about being nice to your friends.

Well that is a good lesson. If you treat the people who care about you like crap, you'll end up with no one, or they'll tell you where you can shove it and to change your attitude before it gets to that point.

Its being nice to your enemies or trying to force everyone to be like you without bothering to understand them, that's the issue. But even the first two cartoons had ponies forgiving a good chunk of their enemies.

And from a healing perspective, you don't have to forgive everyone that has hurt you, but forgiving yourself for being hurt or upset...the show could have built on this concept.

And yeah, treating people like crap WILL leave you friendless, which was a major theme of many villains in the show. Some were reformed, but most stayed evil throughout the series. Not all villains were reformed, and doing so was kind of a cop-out, but keep in mind this is a kids' show. It's not meant for adults at all.

There were a few recent episodes in season 8 which had misunderstandings between friends, and I wish other episodes were like this, confronting real conflicts and how to resolve them. I also liked the letter writing at the end of the first season and I wish that was continued throughout the series.

[Shaz]

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...)

Oh, how I identify. I think where many people just think 'hmm, cute cartoon about friendship', I'm there totally overreacting and going 'noooo, go away, enforced socialising!'. It's probably oversensitive of me but I didn't like how Twilight's academic leanings were often played for laughs. E.g., it's okay for Rainbow Dash to continually call Twilight an egghead just because their interests and ways of learning are different, because social skills are more important than brains anyway. I think Monster High did it better with Ghoulia. She was so brainy the other ghouls didn't always know what to make of her, but she was able to use her unique skills to help them out and I think they appreciated her for it (a rose-tinted glimpse of Monster High; I know it had its questionable moments as well). But I realise not everyone is going to see it that way. I'd rather be told not to play with guns and similar useful messages than be told 'FRIENDSHIP IS ALL. BOW BEFORE FRIENDSHIP!'.

Back on topic of things I like about G4, I agree with the people who like the wings! G1 wings are cute, but they're so tiny, however do they fly with them? G4 wings look like they might actually get a pony off the ground!
I also like how much pony-related merch there is around. Other generations had that too, but this is the only one since I became a collector. It's exciting to me to be able to just go to a shop and buy an MLP sticker book or pencil case. At one time it was ponies everywhere! And that's got to be good.
I liked a lot of the pony's designs too. I know we all moan about the Mane 6, but they are cute (until oversaturation sets in). I liked Rainbow Dash from the start (rainbow hair!!), which is a shame because she's not that nice in the cartoon. Luckily I can give my toys their own personalities

[SpacePinto]

Well that is a good lesson.

Maybe for a few episodes max, but not to base an entire nearly decade-long series around it

[Taffeta]

@Shaz - this is why the Crunch the Rock Dog episode and its lessons are so important compared to the G4 stuff. They're horrible to Wind Whistler, but they ultimately come to understand her. She doesn't change who she is, and they dno't change who they are, but they just understand her better. And that's between ponies, which is in a sense more natural if you want a message on friendship and difference. Because in FIM it unfortunately looks like the imposition of one culture on the other (referencing again the one with the Griffons and their statue).

On the subject of Twilight being smart - yes, yes and yes again. I LIVED THAT EXACT thing. There were the kids who thought they could copy my work (hah, nope). The kids who would always want to know what my grade was for whatever reason. But more creepily, my mother used to get asked at the school gate what reading book I was on and there were parents convinced that I was also home taught to get me ahead at school because my parents were teachers (I wasn't. Hah fat chance getting me to sit down to study at home!).

So I was about 15 maths books ahead of my peers. I read at 2, learned to write at 3, could add up road signs by the age of four. At the same time I couldn't find my way from my desk to the register tray and I didn't know how to line up boy girl boy girl because I didn't understand lining up. I was absolutely both the smart kid and the weird kid and in my case the bullying was also FROM TEACHERS.

But I remember being called brainy, and brainbox, and all that stuff which I hated. I remember once in secondary school - and I was fairly quiet at school as a rule - but one of my friends got on my case about it because of a maths test we'd done and I'd got a good mark. She was like, you're the brainbox and I bet you worked on it so hard at home and revised. And I just took her apart, I'd had enough.

So yeah, poor Twilight. It may be part of the reason I hate Rainbow Dash in G4, but it's not the only reason. My experience was that sporty kids picked on brainy kids, but tv shows endorsed sporty kids and normalised bullying of brainy kids. FIM does nothing different.

...Although honestly, I don't think FIM as a series has much actual character development. It has character creation and those characters are expanded upon, but it's not the same as character growth. I admit I didn't see the whole range of episodes, but I got absolutely no growth from any of these characters.

...And there's a moment in the movie where frankly, the way the M6 behave (pirate ship) is fundamentally disgusting. It reminds me of some of Jem's moments of insensitive self-advantage, and it doesn't sit well with me at all. (In the MLP Movie, they basically get the ship in trouble then clear out and leave the pirates to face the consequences, but it's fine because you know, friendship and all means running off and leaving people behind when you have what you want. In Jem,  it's the expectation of a free gondola ride and then when the guy - who is probably supporting a family - doesn't want to give them a free ride, they're all snarky about it.)

...So yes. I have some issues with FIM.

And FIM DID create the brony problem. Without FIM, there are no bronies. It also created the fixation on the M6. So I would have liked G4 much more without FIM.

[NanoRuby]

And FIM DID create the brony problem. Without FIM, there are no bronies.

Something people seem to forget is that the brony thing started of ironically. People started watching it because it was the kind of thing that wouldn't normally attract an older male audience. And it was these ironic bronies that brought in the genuine bronies, both good and bad. If the dudebros on the internet hadn't started watching the show as a joke and posting about it online, I can almost guarantee that the show would not be nearly as big as it is was.

Either way, I'm sorry you were treated like that in school, and I can understand why a lot of the messages in FiM would make you and others uncomfortable.

[Leave a Whisper]

And FIM DID create the brony problem. Without FIM, there are no bronies.

Something people seem to forget is that the brony thing started of ironically. People started watching it because it was the kind of thing that wouldn't normally attract an older male audience. And it was these ironic bronies that brought in the genuine bronies, both good and bad. If the dudebros on the internet hadn't started watching the show as a joke and posting about it online, I can almost guarantee that the show would not be nearly as big as it is was.

Either way, I'm sorry you were treated like that in school, and I can understand why a lot of the messages in FiM would make you and others uncomfortable.

How do you figure that when MLP gets along quite well without a toxic internet fanbase who thinks they're the only ones who are more important then everyone else Including the Target Audience? In the states, Hasbro was rolling in dough during the G1 and G3 eras.

[NanoRuby]

Sorry, I should have been clearer with my wording. I can almost guarentee that the toxic brony fandom would not be nearly as big as it was without the dudebros on the internet who started watching it as a joke. I didn't mean to imply that G4 wouldn't have been successful.

[Taffeta]

And FIM DID create the brony problem. Without FIM, there are no bronies.

Something people seem to forget is that the brony thing started of ironically. People started watching it because it was the kind of thing that wouldn't normally attract an older male audience. And it was these ironic bronies that brought in the genuine bronies, both good and bad. If the dudebros on the internet hadn't started watching the show as a joke and posting about it online, I can almost guarantee that the show would not be nearly as big as it is was.

Either way, I'm sorry you were treated like that in school, and I can understand why a lot of the messages in FiM would make you and others uncomfortable.

How do you figure that when MLP gets along quite well without a toxic internet fanbase who thinks they're the only ones who are more important then everyone else Including the Target Audience? In the states, Hasbro was rolling in dough during the G1 and G3 eras.

I think this is a difference in perception. Those of us who come to MLP prior to G4 don't necessarily see the publicity FIM got as a positive thing, since we didn't need it to make pony popular, we had a good, thriving and busy community before FIM happened, and in many ways, the whole ambience of pony was kind of messed up because of the sudden surge of interest online.

Not talking specifically about the bronies now, but all the media, the articles about FIM, the articles about 'rare and expensive' ponies in your attic which only happened because suddenly MLP was in vogue again and getting social media attention. There was this sense that MLP "began" with FIM as a fan entity, which not only denied that we all existed quite peacefully for years before FIM happened, but that we were all somehow connected to FIM in some way - which not every pony fan is or wants to be.

I've heard it said before many times by people from the pre-G4 era that we didn't want the publicity, we didn't need the attention, and we'd happily go back to it being a world in which ponypeople just connected to ponypeople while the rest of the world got along on its own.

I don't know that people who were brought in from that media blitz see it the same way most of us do - but I was certainly happier being a pony collector before all the hype kicked off. Now I have to qualify that I'm a ponyperson, not a brony or a pegasister, that my ponies don't have cutie marks, I don't say everypony and I'm not going to pay £25 for a bait peachy because "people are into them now."

I genuinely got told by someone doing PR for some pony line that all pony fans were bronies and I didn't really know much about MLP if I didn't know that.

...Anyone who calls me a brony gets a digital black eye >.>

The thing is that MLP didn't need a show to be successful, as G1 and G3 proved. The idea of a show being important to a pony line is a new thing post 2011, and a lot of us pre-FIM really don't care if FIM was successful or not. We care about how we get treated because of FIM, both by FIM fans and the wider public :/ And all the hype for FIM brought a lot of bad stuff to us, even when it was connecting together creative and enthusiastic fans of G4 in among the toxic ones. I know really well that not all FIM/G4 fans are toxic twisted bronies. But we took a big hit from the popularity of FIM spilling out as it did. And a lot of us would've been fine if it never happened.

[Leave a Whisper]

One and/or the other would have been successful. Why?

1)Because it has little kids who love it first and foremost.

2) Its been one of Hasbro's big moneymakers for years.

Will it have some less profitable years? Of course. Any long-lived franchise will, due to any number of external factors.

Will it fall out of favor someday to the point where Hasbro will cut it from production because it's no longer profitable? Its a possibility. No brand, no company (except maybe the allmighty disney) is infallible.



Back OT: Anyway, I dunno if they're G4 or something else, but I like the retro/crossover lines a lot. Ahh if only space and money weren't a collector's natural enemies, I'd buy most of them.


@Taf Sounds like that person needs to get ripped a new one. Verbally and loudly and twice as rudely. 

[Ponyfan]

I like some of the G4 songs.  Some are really catchy and Rainbow Dash’s version of Jingle Bells is hilarious.


Ponyfan

[Goanna]

Well, yes, since G4 is what got me into MLP in the first place
I do love the show especially, and the characters in it.