I had a danish for breakfast. I didn't make it

Hasbro and in particular CEO Chris P. Cocks' stupidity has also lead to sales-killing price-gouging on brands like Transformers that's hurting those brands as well. And I bet the idiot has a golden parachute clause in his contract, too; it would explain why the shareholders haven't fired him in order to stop him from continuing to undercut their value with his idiocy.

Regarding G5... I think starting it up so soon after G4 ended could still have worked.
IF it had been the clean break in narrative and design that it actually needed to be. G4 was exhausted on every level, and retailers and customers alike were exhausted of it and its poorly-balanced assortments.
MLP needed a new setting and a substantial change in aesthetic (like, say, reverting to something more horse-like) that would have actually felt like a new start.
But noooooo, the idiots in charge couldn't bring themselves to fully let go of G4, and so the line basically looks and feels like more of the same thing they were already sick of to retailers.
And wasn't there also a long delay between the movie coming out and the show debuting?

Quote from: Taffeta on January 20, 2024, 05:00:02 PM

I'm not mad about the obsession with segregating species and then bringing them together, either, it's cliche and hackneyed.

Indeed.

Quote from: Taffeta

I never bought into G1's fixation with de-magicking earth ponies in US media releases, since in the UK ponies had magic regardless of their species and I liked that better. The factfile states Magic Star is the most magical pony of all of them, so yeah.

In fairness, "My Little Pony and Friends" toned down everybody's magical capabilities compared to the backcard stories. Individual unicorns don't have much variety to what they can do with their magic in that, and the only special thing pegasi can do is fly (although that did make them the cartoon's favorite since the cartoon loved to travel to various locations).
The show does at least make clear that Earth Ponies are still inherently magical - otherwise, their hair wouldn't have been much use in repairing Porcina's cloak.

Quote from: Taffeta

Maybe because I grew up with it, but I feel like it's not very progressive, having a world in which x type of pony can only do x. It's not quite as strangling as 'your cutie mark destiny', but it isn't great.

How do you feel about G4 giving pegasi weather magic to go with them flying?

Quote from: Taffeta

Reality isn't like that. I will never understand why Earth ponies should not have magic as an option by default.

I think a lot of people tend to see them as the "normals" of the setting because they're the closest to IRL horses and don't have obvious supernatural features like wings or horns. Hasbro themselves seem to have felt that way in G3 (and it obviously took arm-twisting to get pegasi and unicorns added to the line at all).

Quote from: Taffeta

Unpopular opinion, too, but I am ok with MLP ending with G5. I feel like we already had 2 generations too many, given the chaos of G4 and then this. MLP doesn't need to be constantly trampled down by repetitive overselling of the same characters. If MLP disappeared completely, well, so what? Those of us who grew up with G1 survived that and we're still surviving it. Will it really make a huge difference if ponies stop being sold? The ones most of us grew up with (G1 or G3 included) haven't been on shelves for years but we're still here for them...

I mean, it will make it harder to share MLP with future generations if it ends, and probably kill throwback stuff like Basic Fun reissues that make getting G1 stuff more accessible for those who didn't grow up with it.

At this rate, maybe it would be better if Hasbro imploded and Takara-Tomy picked up the pieces.