how are we classifying/labelling the basic fun ponies?

[SunbeamV]

especially now with the celestials being released so it's not just necessarily just reproduction/rereleases anymore. are they still true g1s, like should start referring to 2023 as "year 11"? are they technically g4-5s because of the years of release? or are we just going to have a totally separate abbreviation like BF? i'm curious to hear some thoughts!

[Eskara1862]

I personally still consider them "Retro" even though they're technically new. The development and art for the line was created back in the G1 years, but the item was never produced. Hence, it's true roots are retro. Now, if they went off the rails and started creating all new G1 ponies, I'd think we'd have to start calling them something like G1.5 or Back to the 80s or something.

[tailrustedtealeaf]

They're all retro and not true G1! Retro or BF are all perfectly acceptable modifiers. It's less like something that needs to be put on the G1-G5 timeline and more just a branch. The birds on the branch are all retro.

[Ponyfan]

I just call them Basic Fun ponies to distinguish them from the real G1s.  So if I'm talking about BF Moondancer instead of the original I'll say that instead of G1 Moondancer.

For the new ponies I say BF Celestial ponies.

Ponyfan

[CuddlyParrot]

Yeah I like this, it is simple and to the point way to say it.

[brightberry]

I just call them Basic Fun ponies to distinguish them from the real G1s.  So if I'm talking about BF Moondancer instead of the original I'll say that instead of G1 Moondancer.

For the new ponies I say BF Celestial ponies.

Ponyfan

I do the same.

[CowboyRaccoons]

me as well! from my experience with my retro posey vs my g1s the retro ponies are much harder vinyl and their hair is softer to the touch

[Crystal-Sushi]

me as well! from my experience with my retro posey vs my g1s the retro ponies are much harder vinyl and their hair is softer to the touch

The harder body is probably due to plasticiser leakage due to age I'd assume, and I know a number of big hair manufacturers have shut down/merged since the 80s 

[Carrehz]

I call the Basic Funs, and any other retro stuff (like the Running Press mini ponies, World's Smallest, etc) "G1 Retro". (and the McDonald's G2 is G2 Retro, BF's G3s are G3 Retro...) Just a nice, easy catch-all term and easier to remember than all the different companies that have made retro stuff.

I'd still consider the Celestials to be G1 Retro since they were originally designed in the 80s, they just.... took a little while to come out. If they made some completely new characters... I think I'd still call those "G1 Retro", since they're G1 style, you know?

Although I still have no idea what to classify the Retro Rainbow Mane Six or the collab ponies (Twister pony, etc) as :s

[Leave a Whisper]

As repros or Basic Fun ponies.

[MJNSEIFER]

I personally view them as "new" G1s, and that no generation is every truly "over".

Or at the very least, they're new ponies in G1 style (but I stand by my point about no generation really ending.)

[Ponybookworm]

I class my retro Butterscotches as 25th anniversary & 35th anniversary, & the next will be classed as 40th anniversary. Peachy, Seashell, Gingerbread, & Tootsie are all 35th anniversary, & the Celestials will be 40th. The Stranger Things AJ will just be Stranger Things, but in effect all are under Retro

[Taffeta]

I just call them BF ponies, because it's what they are. The Celestials are BF ponies, albeit G1 ponies under licence from Hasbro. I don't think it's a problem to call the Celestials G1, but they're a bit like the Estrela etc ponies that were made by different companies with other people's blessings.

As for the 'year 11' suggestion, there are a couple of reasons why that wouldn't make sense.
Firstly, Year 1 to Year 10 only applies to US MLP. The years can't be applied to ponies sold outside of the US as the distribution was different, but MLP continued in those places two years at least beyond the US. I have heard some people sloppily refer to those years as y11 and y12, which is nonsense but would cause confusion if applied to the BF ponies. The year terms are outdated and US-centric and we'd do better not using them at all, rather than trying to extend them.

Secondly, the ponies themselves were designed during the US G1 run. So they should technically belong to the year when they were designed for release. At the same time, they weren't made, so we can't formally tie them into those years. 2023 is not 1991 or 1992.

Thirdly, 'Celestial' and the names of the ponies are not what Hasbro intended, and it's impossible to know how close to Hasbro's intentions the BF versions are. That makes them both old and new, with collector input (given Celestial is a collector community tag, not a Hasbro one).

G1.5 is also a non-thing. It's not possible to subdivide G1 without getting messy. The Celestials aside, the BF ponies so far are replicas of G1 ponies. They're not some different sub-line. If G1 did have subdivides, it would be probably petites and Dream Beauties, but as has been mentioned in other discussions, a sub-divide marks a stylistic break that replaces what came before. Nothing in the BF ponies implies that. Even the Celestials are basically G1 ponies and were designed in original G1.

I don't think that retro easily applies to the Celestials because they were never sold originally. So they are new G1s. But just referring to them as BF ponies covers all bases. That's why that's how I call them.

Though we should all know what is meant by celestial, so it's easy to refer to that set under that name.

[Carrehz]

For me "Retro" implies the style, not the character.

So like.. hm, what to compare them to... I wouldn't call, say, Integrity Toys' Graphix doll "retro", because the IT style is totally different to the 80s Jem dolls. Beautiful, but a modern take on the concept, a reboot rather than a reproduction. But this SSC Raisin Cane doll I'd consider "retro" since they're reproducing the 80s SSC style exactly. Does that make sense?