My Little Pony Outdid The Transformers?

[LadyMoondancer]

The funny thing is the Transformers movie AND the MLP movie AND the two MLP specials (RaMC and Katrina) were all written by George Arthur Bloom.  So obviously he could / had written gripping stuff with MLP before.

My guess is Hasbro and the movie people were looming over his shoulder more this time, and that they were had the "demographic blinders" on.  As in, "Whatever you do, don't make the villains scary.  Little girls simply can't handle scary things."

I guess some people found the Smooze scary but I never did.  I did see MLP: The Movie in the theater as a little girl, super excited about it beforehand because it was a MLP MOVIE OMG!!  Sadly I found it forgettable.  As in, a week after seeing it I had literally forgotten the plot and confusedly imagined my own, where Baby Lickety-Split ran to Hollywood with Spike to be a movie star.  For YEARS I thought that was the actual plot of the movie, until I bought the VHS as an adult.

[Lore-Lei]

a week after seeing it I had literally forgotten the plot and confusedly imagined my own, where Baby Lickety-Split ran to Hollywood with Spike to be a movie star.  For YEARS I thought that was the actual plot of the movie, until I bought the VHS as an adult.

The pony movie that had a pony movie in it, fantastic.

[Al-1701]

a week after seeing it I had literally forgotten the plot and confusedly imagined my own, where Baby Lickety-Split ran to Hollywood with Spike to be a movie star.  For YEARS I thought that was the actual plot of the movie, until I bought the VHS as an adult.

The pony movie that had a pony movie in it, fantastic.

And along with having to retrieve Baby Lickety-Split, the ponies have to deal with the bad man from New York City in the "Ember's Dream" cassette only he's now after Twinkle Eyed pony hair.  The climax could be them saving the Twinkle Eyes from his BARBER SHOP OF DOOM!

Dixon could even get his drunken Shipwreck Cameo.

Wind Whistler:  "Excuse me, sir.  We wish to query you regarding a missing juvenile earth pony."

Shipwreck:  "Uhh..."

Wind Whistler:  "She is appromixately this tall at the shoulder with a light purple coat and a curly, light pink mane.  Have you seen a pony matching that description?"

Shipwreck:  "Uhh..."

Wind Whistler:  "I'm sorry, do you not speak English?  I could inquire in an alternative language."

Shipwreck:  "This is the last time I drink my way through shore leave."

Wind Whistler:  "I am confused.  How does the consumption of fluids generate propulsion?"

[brighteyes]

The funny thing is the Transformers movie AND the MLP movie AND the two MLP specials (RaMC and Katrina) were all written by George Arthur Bloom.  So obviously he could / had written gripping stuff with MLP before.

My guess is Hasbro and the movie people were looming over his shoulder more this time, and that they were had the "demographic blinders" on.  As in, "Whatever you do, don't make the villains scary.  Little girls simply can't handle scary things."

I guess some people found the Smooze scary but I never did.  I did see MLP: The Movie in the theater as a little girl, super excited about it beforehand because it was a MLP MOVIE OMG!!  Sadly I found it forgettable.  As in, a week after seeing it I had literally forgotten the plot and confusedly imagined my own, where Baby Lickety-Split ran to Hollywood with Spike to be a movie star.  For YEARS I thought that was the actual plot of the movie, until I bought the VHS as an adult.

Now THAT would have been a cool movie or episode!  Kind of like the Bright Lights arc in the show.

[LadyMoondancer]

Yes, the Barber of Doom must show up!  (That reminds me of a 101 Dalmatians picture book I read, obviously aimed at really little kids, which claimed Cruella was kidnapping all those dalmatian puppies to . . . force them to be clowns.  Maybe the barber was supplying Cruella with rainbow wigs for the dogs.)

I blame this ponywear for my delusions:

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That's CLEARLY Lickety-Split once she's made it big in the movie.

[Al-1701]

That would explain things.

And the Barber of Doom (that's now totally his name), would have been the perfect character for Danny DeVito.

[hathorcat]

I think Transformers did worse because it had a PG rating, which may have caused the parents of younger TF fans to steer clear.  Transformers: The Movie is still a much better film IMO.  It may not have done well financially, but at least it was ambitious and had great animation.

I think you are spot on - I think the rating has blamed for part of the movies downfall - I am sure I have read that in the past.

Ihave never understood why there is this perception that the movie was a flop...it wasn't. Sure it perhaps wasnt greatly recieved by critics in general. But its designed to be an advert for a toy line that went on in the following years to have some of its biggest financial successes for Hasbro - it actually didnt need to clear all that much in order for it to be financially worth while for them. For Hasbro it largely did what it had to do; if MLP had vanished in the next couple of years you could say it was a marketing disaster but the opposite happened.

As for comparison to TF - its hard to do that when even back then they had different audiences. TF had older audiences even at that time; adult collectors. So the criticism it took was as much from grown up fans as it was from others. Hence why it is perhaps considered a "failure".

[Al-1701]

Actually, the Transformers was hurt across the board by the movie.  So many characters people knew and loved were dead.  The movie ended up being a massive loss, the show suffered in the ratings, and the toys weren't moving as well as Hasbro had hoped.  In '89, Hasbro tried to release the original toys and first 65 episodes as "Generation 2" only with cosmetic changes (recolors and new names for the toys and the CG! Cyber cube thing for the show).  Hasbro was a little too good with their branding because it made it difficult to move on to something new.

My Little Pony probably benefited from not being too tied into its media.  The first wave of Year 4 are the only ponies to really benefit from having a cartoon.  The rest of the years sustained themselves on variety in characters and types of ponies.

[LadyMoondancer]

Remember that Care Bears: The Movie had come out the previous year, got good reviews, and actually beat out Disney's 1985 offering, "The Black Cauldron", at the box office.

"Care Bears" made $34 million.  I think that was the type of return Hasbro was looking for.  What I've heard is that Hasbro actually lost $10 million with MLP and TF, although I admit I don't know the source for that number.  But at any rate, I'm sure they expected to make more than $6 million per movie. I do think Hasbro regarded them as flops, or else they wouldn't have hastily switched G.I. Joe: The Movie to direct-to-video instead of a theatrical release.

They also switched from Duke dying to Duke being "in a coma", not wanting another Optimus situation. Death of main characters was something that had never happened in Transformers before and a lot of kids were really upset.  But I will say, people who watched it as kids love it today.  Even the ones who hated Rodimus (who was Optimus Prime's replacement) and were in tears over Optimus just loooove the movie. I think it's because, no matter how sad or scary they found the movie, it didn't feel like it was talking down to them.  Kids really respect that.

I think the G1 Transformers cartoon would have ended as soon as it hit 65 episodes no matter what; at that point it could be syndicated, so Hasbro would see additional episodes as unnecessary.  Very few 80s cartoons lasted more than three seasons.

[Al-1701]

I found a collection of the G.I. Joe intros.  Duke is not present in the 1986 intro, probably because he was supposed to be killed off.  The intro to the movie (probably finished when it was going to be released in theaters) also has none of the new characters in it.

Conclusion:  The G.I. Joe movie was originally going to be released in 1986 and kill off Duke which would mean he would not be in the second season.  However, delays pushed it back to the next year, probably forcing them to completely redo the script.  They included Duke in the second season, because the movie would now take place after.  Then, after Transformers bombed, they decided to rewrite Duke's fate.