Unpopular Pony Opinions

[Leave a Whisper]

I still say its erroneous to call the Mane Six G1 inspired, when almost all of them are blatantly G3 carry overs.  Lauren Faust was full of crap when she said that.

[MJNSEIFER]

I still say its erroneous to call the Mane Six G1 inspired, when almost all of them are blatantly G3 carry overs.  Lauren Faust was full of crap when she said that.

They are G1 inspired.  They were supposed to be G1 carry overs based on how she saw Six G1 ponies when she was younger - she was told not to make them those G1 ponies and was told to give them G3 names.

The five who aren't Applejack are a lot closer to their G1 counterparts than their G3 ones.  To make G3 Rainbow Dash into G4 Rainbow Dash, you need to give her a complete personality makeover, but to make Firefly into G4 Rainbow Dash, you just have to add some arrogance, and she's done.  All of the others (I need to check on Twilight Sparkle), fit the G1 ponies they were supposed to be far more than the G3 reboots they ended up being - and that's even when you take into account that Lauren was basing it on how she played with them, and not how they were in the show.

The plan was always to make them G1 remakes, but she wasn't allowed.

[Leave a Whisper]

Hardly. Most of them just got tweaks and personality swaps.  And considering they were based on how She was playing with them just adds credence to the fact that they are not G1 inspired. Making up your own stories with your toys is fun. But that doesn't mean it was the truth.

But then, this is the woman who thinks that MLP and Friends and all girls shows were nothing but tea parties and crying over nothing. Care Bears, She-Ra, Rainbowbrite, Moondreamers and Jem are so far removed from that outright lie its amazing anyone who has access to youtube or netflix still believes it.

[MJNSEIFER]

The jury is still out on whether she meant G1 when she said that, in my opinion.  It could easily be taken to mean she meant other shows that weren't G1 the way it was worded.

I'm not sure it was even stated what girl's shows she meant, but if she never saw any back then she could have just assumed and gotten it wrong, she is allowed to make mistakes.

Either way, if they were inspired by her interpretation of G1, they are still G1 inspired as she was thinking of G1 when she wrote them and G3 had no hand in their creation other than their names, and some of their designs.  They are definitely more G1 inspired than G3 inspired since they don't match any of the G3 ponies from their group, as much as I love G3.

[Taffeta]

Another unpopular opinion. Lauren Faust's opinion of older generations is no more or less valid or important than anyone else's opinions. It's a fan opinion. Not a mantra to live by

Faust may have created G4 canon. For anything prior to G4, she is just a fan or a child who played with MLP.  And it annoys me how her opinions of older generations are worshipped by some crazy folk as though her writing for G4 somehow makes her an authority on what came before. We don't need to cite her in discussions of what G1 was or wasn't.

On the subject of the inspiration of the mane 6...I agree with LAW on this. I think it's accepted that the M6 are really character 'types', not so much anything original. But the M6 are one stereotypical character detail each done to death, rather than a really varied or balanced range of character traits.

At best they harvest that one trait from one of the G1 antecedents, but it's not really much of a resemblance. Twilight Sparkle is nothing like Twilight, for example. Twilight was shy and retiring, magical and somewhat mysterious, generally travelling in a cloud of mist to hide from unwanted attention. Twilight Sparkle, on the other hand, is always at the centre of everything, and her character is entirely different. And recently I saw a lot of g4 fans mistake Glory in a G1 clip for Rarity. It's always struck me that Rarity is based on Glory's appearance, and only her symbol matches Sparkler. At best in the comic Sparkler has a gem collection, but that's the only vague similarity - yet we're meant to believe Sparkler 'inspired' Rarity. No she didn't. Rarity is Rarity. They weren't inspired from the G1 ideas. They were changed from them into the M6.

 Saying they're inspired by G1 is what's called a marketing ploy. It tries to bring this brand new thing they want to sell into the minds and hearts of the market by connecting it to that thing you knew in the past that you loved as a kid and that now your kids can love. It was also a way to bypass G2 (which bronies barely know exists) and G3 to connect G4 to G1 directly, as though it's the 'real descendent' of G1, and G2 and G3 were just abberations. I have also seen people make comments to that effect, so I guess it worked in some quarters. But again, that's not 'inspired by'. That's "you saw the previous movie, come see the sequel, it's awesome."

[MJNSEIFER]

To be honest... I've never seen anyone worshiping Lauren's views on the previous generations.

I actually do see her views on My Little Pony as fan opinions, that's one of the reasons I respect it so much - she's someone who (indirectly) got her fanfictions into being a show, and that means something to me.

Oh yeah, I forgot about G1 Twilight being shy for some reason.  Even though she's literally referred to as "Shy Little Twilight" - yeah, I think she was another one who Lauren just did what she wanted to do with based on how she played with them.

I do think the Mane Six are character types, and I doubt they're meant to be original, but I do see some balance in their characters in the earlier seasons.  There are some layers, not much, but I do see some.  They seem to focus more on their one personality in the later episodes to me.

Rarity was originally supposed to be Sparkler, I guess Lauren managed to put in some of Glory's design when she was told not to use Sparkler?  I don't know how she got that in, but I can see how someone could be inspired to create G4 Rarity from Sparkler, and yes it is the gem thing - I think Sparkler used her magic to find "shiny objects" which is translated to Rarity doing the same thing to find gems.  I wouldn't be surprised if the original plan was to make Rarity's cutie mark be about finding gems, since it was never intended for her to be a designer (It's good that she is one though.)

It was not a marketing ploy at all - Hasbro didn't want her to bypass G3, they wanted her to go directly from G3.  As much as I love G3 (it's my favorite generation), the only marketing ploy going on was telling Lauren to start at G3 (presumably) because they didn't think G1 had enough familiarity to the target audience.

Hasbro at the time would have happily not bothered connecting it to G1.  If they had, they would have allowed Lauren to keep her original designs.

I do respect it if any of you don't feel they matched the G1s well, but the plan was for them to be new versions of G1 characters (however close to the originals they were) and not new versions of G3 characters.  Again, based on one person's interpretation of them, but still G1 ponies.

[Taffeta]

I feel like if Hasbro wanted to continue from G3, they'd have continued G3. They did entirely the opposite, so I think that's a bit of a fallacy. They probably kept the names because they had the trademarks.

I am not really saying HASBRO tried to tie into G1, since Hasbro don't really care about G1 as such. But FIM as a series did, through the way the writers have cherrypicked G1 concepts and themes throughout.

I have also seen plenty of comments which go something like, "Faust says G1 is (insert) so it is (insert) over the past several years. And I don't want to see my collectable through the prism of someone else's interpretation.

I have only seen the early series of G4, so if you say that's when they're the most nuanced, all I can say is, o.O.

I am being hard on you but it isn't really you that I am critical of in the G4 world. You're a brony by your choice but you're not part of the toxicity and I respect your opinion even if I don't entirely agree with you on every point.

So the Sparkler stuff I'm putting in a spoiler as now I'm going way off topic (albeit all the above could be seen as unpopular opinions...)

The summarised version of my unpopular opinion is: Rarity is not based on Sparkler because they are basically nothing alike.

Spoiler

IMO trying to base a G4 character in a single canon (the cartoon, which is what the incarnation was developed for) on a G1 character with multiple canons (backcard story - possibly multiple in different countries/languages, storybooks - ditto above, the animation - more for some than others. The comics - ditto, again with regional distribution in different places) is not really workable without serious levels of research to find all those details and put them together. To say inspired by something is a lazy way of saying, "Looked at a picture, thought the diamonds were cute, kept them as a nod to the past." It's not really anything about Sparkler as a character - and for FIM we are not talking about "appearance" but "character", because FIM is a story, not a toyline.

It';s hard to really explain but to me the nuance is that Rarity is interested in gems because of her wider interest in beauty and fashion. Sparkler is just interested in shiny things, which she often shares or occasionally puts to greater use. I remember her particularly because she was in the first comic I ever had (#18) in the story Sparkler's Secret...she uses her stones to light the way home when a picnic overruns and it's dark...
Edit: Here it is!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiLGKj1Lm0c

In my opinion Sparkler's collection has a different kind of purpose from Rarity's. Them both having an interest in gems doesn't make them alike. As I said before, it's fine that they are not alike and that the common thing has been interpreted differently. But it doesn't make Rarity 'like Sparkler'  because they both like gems. Their characters are entirely different, and so are their appearances, and their names. Thus what are we left with? Just the diamond symbol...and even that is different. And as we're talking about a character, more than a toy comparison, they really don't have much in common.

My disclaimer to this is that Sparkler wasn't sold in the UK. The backcard story for the US appears in part in the UK factfile, and it's the part where she's finding the gem and trying to give it to Majesty, not the part where she's admiring her collection. It may be that my memories of Sparkler as a more intelligent and altruistic kind of magpie are influenced by her comic representation. Rarity is intelligent, and she is kind. But it's not the same. I guess I don't know how else to present it, but I can't see Rarity as being like Sparkler.

I can't remember much about her in Escape from Catrina. Just getting annoyed with Sundance at the beginning and wearing the cheerleader outfit at the end...(I see Rarity is more of a Scarlet Sensation/Designer Collection type of girl )

I could do similar for the others but I feel like this is going off topic now so..yeah.

[MJNSEIFER]

I do have more to say about this, but I respect the fact that we are going off topic, so I might put my views together on this elsewhere when I can.

Thank you for respecting my opinion, as I also respect the opinions of all here.  I do have some responses, but I might open something else for this rather than post it here, as I don't want to completely take over this thread.

[Leave a Whisper]

The jury is still out on whether she meant G1 when she said that, in my opinion.  It could easily be taken to mean she meant other shows that weren't G1 the way it was worded.

I'm not sure it was even stated what girl's shows she meant, but if she never saw any back then she could have just assumed and gotten it wrong, she is allowed to make mistakes.

Either way, if they were inspired by her interpretation of G1, they are still G1 inspired as she was thinking of G1 when she wrote them and G3 had no hand in their creation other than their names, and some of their designs.  They are definitely more G1 inspired than G3 inspired since they don't match any of the G3 ponies from their group, as much as I love G3.

And once again, that simply isn't true for many girls shows. A good chunk of them are not that vapid. I've no doubt some of them are, but its not a mistake to deliberately throw an entire section of toons under the bus. It is just as false as saying that all boys shows are full of brainless  action and gross out humor, as it is to say that all girls shows are vapid tea parties with no intelligence or respect being put into either of them.

It smacks of the astonishing belligerence of many of today's cartoonists. They can't come up with anything on their own so they ape something and badmouth the originals. FiM, ThunderCats Roar, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power and Mega Man Fully Charged all had animators that simply couldn't help slinging unfounded and unnecessary potshots at the originals and sometimes their creators.  It's a tiresome trend.

 Were the originals perfect? No. But they obviously did something right to be loved so fondly. Do fans overreact with mouths full of vitriol? Far too often and I could see how it would wear on even the most professional of people. Was there any reason to maliciously lie to try and make their iteration look better? Absolutely not.

I don't recall hearing anything about the teams who made ThunderCats 2011 or Duck Tales badmouthing the original endlessly. They were made with care and effort and love. I don't think the Rise of the Turtles ever badmouthed prior incarnations. Even Jon Chu didn't badmouth the original Jem in the face of overwhelming backlash. So points to them for showing professionalism.

[brightberry]

I had always thought that Faust had based them solely on how she played with her toys.  In the US, we didn't have a comic.  We had just the cartoons and backcard stories to go by.  And I assumed she hadn't watched the cartoon because of the "tea party" comment.  The backcards did have parties but ones that tended to be pretty epic with powerful magic involved.  But there wasn't much characterization for the earliest ponies like Glory, Sparkler and Applejack in the US.

Even so, I know Applejack was a huge favorite just for her small part with the Sea Ponies in Rescue at Midnight Castle.  For me, FiM Applejack only looks like the G1 Applejack and they aren't the same pony at all.  As a result, FiM Applejack is my least favorite pony.

[Ponyfan]

Even so, I know Applejack was a huge favorite just for her small part with the Sea Ponies in Rescue at Midnight Castle.  For me, FiM Applejack only looks like the G1 Applejack and they aren't the same pony at all.  As a result, FiM Applejack is my least favorite pony.

I consider FIM Applejack and G1 Applejack different characters too.


Ponyfan

[Taffeta]

Even so, I know Applejack was a huge favorite just for her small part with the Sea Ponies in Rescue at Midnight Castle.  For me, FiM Applejack only looks like the G1 Applejack and they aren't the same pony at all.  As a result, FiM Applejack is my least favorite pony.

I consider FIM Applejack and G1 Applejack different characters too.


Ponyfan

Me too. But that's a continuation of the basic concept that the mane 6 bear no resemblance to the G1 characters that allegedly inspired them. And it's also natural I think for a new gen to do new stuff?

[brightberry]

Even so, I know Applejack was a huge favorite just for her small part with the Sea Ponies in Rescue at Midnight Castle.  For me, FiM Applejack only looks like the G1 Applejack and they aren't the same pony at all.  As a result, FiM Applejack is my least favorite pony.

I consider FIM Applejack and G1 Applejack different characters too.


Ponyfan

Me too. But that's a continuation of the basic concept that the mane 6 bear no resemblance to the G1 characters that allegedly inspired them. And it's also natural I think for a new gen to do new stuff?

I think as I heard rumors that it was based on G1 and as they had an Applejack, I initially thought it would be the G1 version.  She was very far from it and I was disappointed.  I got over it but G4 Applejack never fully won me over.  Reboots are always hard for me to watch at first.   

[Dreamer]

Maybe I said this before, but I'd pick adults over babies

[PrincessNikki]

And yeah. G4 is really girly. That's my unpopular opinion. G4 is way way way more girly and gendered than G1 is. Which is fine, but it annoys me when people describe G1 as being all about parties and stuff, when that's clearly what G4 is about.

oh god.....I never thought about this before but it's totally true.