Rescue at Midnight Castle Observations

[Al-1701]

There are two likely reasons for that.

1.  Remember the other creatures were created from birds and butterflies.  They probably had the intelligence to match.  Scorpan was originally human.

2.  Tirac seemed to relish forcing Scorpan to be submissive to him.  Allowing him to keep his free will while still being powerless to do anything but obey made his humiliation all the sweeter.

[Carrehz]

Ohhh I would love toys of Scorpan and Tirac.. or any of the other cartoon-only chars (Catrina would make a great toy..)..

I never though about the mystery rainbow pony being the "original" peachy. But that is a super good hypothesis since she always carries around they cat. Maybe they wanted the Pretty Parlor to come with the rainbow pony but found that production cost at the time were too high for a "give away" pony so they use a Snuzzle recolor? The playset ponies were always pretty simple probably for that reason. Someone with more knowledge of of the release timelines for these will probably help debunk this theory.

I think you misunderstood me, I was talking about the cartoon, not the toys. My line of thinking is that perhaps Rescue at Midnight Castle was storyboarded/scripted with the background-pony-carrying-Twinkles as Peachy, but was later changed to Mystery Rainbow Earth Pony for w/e reason (i.e. Hasbro told them to put a rainbow pony in there to promote the upcoming line, Peachy's colours didn't work for animation, etc etc). I imagine the ponies wouldn't have their symbols in the original boards (they don't have them in the boards for the "Call Upon the Sea Ponies" sequence, and I've noticed in storyboards of other cartoons that small details like that tend to be left out, presumably so they don't have to draw them over and over again), so it probably wouldn't be too hard to swap the two. If that makes sense...

I completely don't think that Miss Mystery (I'll call her that for the rest of this post, it's easier than typing "Mystery Rainbow Earth Pony" over and over) was ever supposed to be released with the Pretty Parlour. The earlier ponies were all very simply designed, with single-coloured hair and simple cluster symbols.. Miss Mystery doesn't fit in so I really don't think she had anything to do with that playset at any point. I mean, I guess it's *possible*, we don't know that she didn't, but it seems unlikely to me.

Of course, if you think otherwise, that's totally fine :B I just wanted to clarify my earlier post to avoid any confusion, lol.

Okay well, this may have nothing to do with it at all, but I actually wonder if Peachy was an afterthought pony overall. Rationale for this:
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I love seeing prototype photos thanks for posting it! So interesting.. I love the proto-Twinkles.

I was thinking about this earlier on, about Peachy being an afterthought. It makes a lot of sense to me! She IS basically just a recoloured Snuzzle, I wouldn't at all be surprised if she was slapped together quickly at the last minute. Either that or perhaps the Pretty Parlour was originally going to be released with Snuzzle, and she was swapped out for a new pony (which would make sense from a marketing point of view - having a new pony in a set instead of an "old" one makes it more appealing), again, at the last minute. Either makes sense to me. That's just idle speculation on my part, of course, I could be way off

There are two likely reasons for that.

1.  Remember the other creatures were created from birds and butterflies.  They probably had the intelligence to match.  Scorpan was originally human.

2.  Tirac seemed to relish forcing Scorpan to be submissive to him.  Allowing him to keep his free will while still being powerless to do anything but obey made his humiliation all the sweeter.

I like these theories :o Especially the second, it makes a lot of sense.

[LadyMoondancer]

Good point about all the early ponies being simple.  Miss Mystery has six colors in her mane--more than any real MLP has ever had, as far as I know.  Which does make me think she's more of a stand-in, like if Hasbro said "BTW we are also making rainbow ponies, put a rainbow pony in the show." 

Miss Mystery's design is lovely, it's classic.  But it's so classic it's almost generic, if that makes sense?  Like, if you took a bunch of people who didn't know MLP and told them "draw a rainbow pony" with no other instructions, I feel like there's a good chance that you'd get some drawings of a white, rainbow-haired ponies / horses . . .

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[ember86]

I just had a thought what if Miss Myserty was originally supposed to be Majesty? She has at lest Majesty body color. 

[Carrehz]

Good point about all the early ponies being simple.  Miss Mystery has six colors in her mane--more than any real MLP has ever had, as far as I know.  Which does make me think she's more of a stand-in, like if Hasbro said "BTW we are also making rainbow ponies, put a rainbow pony in the show." 

Miss Mystery's design is lovely, it's classic.  But it's so classic it's almost generic, if that makes sense?  Like, if you took a bunch of people who didn't know MLP and told them "draw a rainbow pony" with no other instructions, I feel like there's a good chance that you'd get some drawings of a white, rainbow-haired ponies / horses . . .

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That's a good point, about how her design is kind of generic! It makes perfect sense She really is lovely - one day I'd love to get a custom of her.

[Ponyfan]

There are two likely reasons for that.

1.  Remember the other creatures were created from birds and butterflies.  They probably had the intelligence to match.  Scorpan was originally human.

2.  Tirac seemed to relish forcing Scorpan to be submissive to him.  Allowing him to keep his free will while still being powerless to do anything but obey made his humiliation all the sweeter.

I agree with both of these. Tirek thoroughly enjoyed his power over his more intelligent captives and watching them suffer. Without a second though he ordered the attacks on the ponies, had the captured ponies chained in his throne room so they couldn't escape, unleased the Rainbow of Darkness on them and threatened to behead a baby dragon for Scorpan's failure to comply with his demands.  Watching Scorpan forced to follow his every order and knowing that deep down Scorpan was serving him unwillingly made Tirek's power over him more satisfying.


Ponyfan

[Ponyfan]

I noticed in this scene there are a couple of different sea ponies that we don't see again during the rest of the song (the ones in the front)
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sea ponies by LovesBarbie, on Flickr


Ponyfan

[northstar3184]

I noticed in this scene there are a couple of different sea ponies that we don't see again during the rest of the song (the ones in the front)
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sea ponies by LovesBarbie, on Flickr


Ponyfan

Oh wow, I must have missed those.

[LunaMoonCustoms1212]

I noticed in this scene there are a couple of different sea ponies that we don't see again during the rest of the song (the ones in the front)
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sea ponies by LovesBarbie, on Flickr


Ponyfan

Oh wow, I must have missed those.

i missed those as well.

[Leave a Whisper]

The purple ones would have made lovely toys. Aren't the blue one Sea Winkle clones?

[LadyMoondancer]

They're similar to Seawinkle, but she has a darker body and hair.  (She's in the top corner to compare to, lol.)

There are also pink sea ponies and yellow sea ponies in the "haven't got an oar, OAR!" scene.

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[Leave a Whisper]

I want a Bubbles colored sea pony.

[Carrehz]

Oh, I love those red/pink sea ponies! They're so pretty.

Then again, I love all of the background sea ponies Their colourschemes are all really nice; you can tell they put a lot of effort into making them look good.