People seem to dislike the Gen directly before the current one.

[RAMChYLD]

Well, I started my collection with the G3s even though the thing that got me hooked was Tales. As for G4, I think the toys are cute. So your opinion may vary. I've decided that G3s are beautiful and buy them if I see them. For example, I found a Butter Pop and Party Cake at a departmental store some time ago (why did all my best finds come during my leave of absence?) and immediately snapped them up.

So yeah, each for his own.

[TheBeatlesPkmnFan42]

People don't like G3 because the cartoons sucked. So, it's just the cartoons, not the toys.

[Honeycomb]

For me it seems to be the opposite, the more popular G4s get, the more I am interested in completing my G3. Just because I am discovering how truely beautiful and creative their designs were in the beginning. G4, I don't know, they look cute from certain angles, but they are so tiny, the styling ones are too big, and so far most of their designs are boring, nothing special. I love the new male ponies though, because they do look different with their new hairstyle.

[BrightIdea]

I think the reason some people aren't as interested in G3's right now is because G4s are all the rage now and are the main product being sold at stores. G3's are old now, but not as old as previous generations, so maybe there is not the same allure as with G1,G2 of the G3 being rare or hard to find because they are still really new and there are a tonne of them floating around.

[ZennaBug]

I grew up with G1, so they're obviously my favorites.  I only ever owned one G2 (I was 7 or 8 when I got her I think) and I didn't play with her as much because she just didn't feel like a pony to me.

As a collector, I only started out wanting G1s.  G2 has begun to grow on me and I have found myself wanting a few, but I only have one little baby right now (she was a gift).  The G3s are cute and have some great designs (until the Core 7 nonsense took over), but I am not attracted to them enough to have them in my collection.  I don't dislike them though.   G3.5 was awful, they just looked silly and there was no diversity.  I don't think many people were happy with that round.  I fell in love with G4 pretty quickly, they are just so adorable!  It's the only gen besides G1 that I will actively seek out on occasion and display with the rest of my ponies.

So I guess I'm another that likes all the gens except 3.5    They're all ponies and I love 'em 

(I feel like you are talking about me with the new found G2 love heheh!)

I LOVE every generation. I have G3 & G3.5 stickers all around my computer screen, and on my drawing notebook.  I used to not like g1-g3.5 because bronies called them so bad. This site made me realize how dumb the bronies were, ever generation is beautiful and perfect in its own way.

Everyone should have their own opinion about something, not just doing what they think others will like. Same with my friends, they despised earlier generations. I asked why, and they said "The fandom hates them". Now they have huge collections of earlier generations, because they learned to respect and love generations 1-3.

Now if everyone was like this... I guess we can't ever live in a world of "love and tolerance" for every generation...

*huggles*  That's the spirit! 

[TuxAndTails]

People don't like G3 because the cartoons sucked. So, it's just the cartoons, not the toys.

I kind of hate the assumption that people would dismiss an entire toy line just because it didn't have a great cartoon. Lots of people loved and continue to love G3, because of the toys, not because of the marketing. Plus, G3 never had a proper show like G1, G2 (depending on what generation you associate Pony Tales with), and G4; so comparing G3's cartoons to any of those isn't very fair.

As far as G3's toys go, they were difficult to sell even before G3.5 came into play. It's just that they're easy to find in places like thrift shops and flea markets, so people don't have a lot of reason to buy them online. It's more to do with overproduction then unpopularity.
G4 may have a very popular show, some boy characters, and an equal number of earth ponies/unicorns/pegasi, but G3 had a lot more variety in colors, molds, they were bigger, and they had less re-releases of the same character for the majority of the run. Neither generation is better then the other

[Malicieuse]

People don't like G3 because the cartoons sucked. So, it's just the cartoons, not the toys.

The cartoons were aimed at very young children. There was even one on learning how to count.
They didn't really suck all that much (just check other cartoons aimed at that target group). The problem is just that for some reason people think these toons should entertain a bunch of teenagers and adults.

[Sonata]

I love them all xD ALL THE PONIES MWAHAHA

[Buzzingbumblebee]

I can't say I hate any generation. G1 are my childhood ponies and will always be most important. G2's are growing on me and I will be happy to have some now and then, although my main focus is G1 so I will rather buy them. I only have one G2 that I found in a thrift store, I'm keeping her ^^. When I was younger I can't say I even noticed the G2's, I guess I didn't recognise them as ponies, I don't remember them anyway. G3 I don't really care for, I don't like their molds, but must say there are some nice designs so I might get a few sometime. I love any sparkle pony for a start . I have only two G3's though. G3,5, hmm, I don't think I will ever want any for myself. If I find some in thrift stores or something I will be happy to let my son play with them, my collection is locked away from him so I guess I need to give him some ponies of his own. He does seem interested anyway ^^. I really like G4's and have quite a few of them, but can't really afford them all so I will only get my favourite designs in future. And I'm also thinking that really I'm happy to wait until I can buy some more second hand as I don't care for their accessories anyway.

[hathorcat]

I think this works across lots of things not just ponies...all of a sudden you go off "what is dated" and love the "something new". But its swings and roundabouts and as the years pass, I think you see a lot of people change. The anti G2 thing is a perfect example - from disliked to loved!

[LuckySwirl]

The only ones I actively dislike are the 3.5s! Really not my thing. I don't collect G2s, but I think they're ok. G1s are my childhood ponies, too (and so, my favorite) but I really like G3 and G4 as well.

[Lancer]

I don't think G3s are unpopular, just easy to come by.  There were a lot more adult collectors by the G3 era than there were when G1 and G2 were around so there are more mint condition G3 ponies around too.  I doubt G3s will ever be as valuable as their predecessors, but that doesn't mean people don't love and collect them...just that most of them were excessively mass produced so there are far too many of them still floating around out there at the moment!
 

People don't like G3 because the cartoons sucked. So, it's just the cartoons, not the toys.

The cartoons were aimed at very young children. There was even one on learning how to count.
They didn't really suck all that much (just check other cartoons aimed at that target group). The problem is just that for some reason people think these toons should entertain a bunch of teenagers and adults.

THANK YOU!  Someone else understands!  The animation in some of the later G3 webisodes was a bit lazy, I admit, the stories were simple but still entertaining (and sometimes educational) to the young audience they were aimed at.  The voice acting in G3 was just as good as in FiM (half the cast are the very same people, for goodness sake!), and yet just because it's "childish and girly" (uh, hello?!  It's a cartoon aimed at young female children...) people will write it off as being "rubbish" or "made by amateurs".

I'm sorry some adults are not entertained by a pre-school cartoon.  How terrible of everyone involved in its production not to think of an audience they never expected to be watching it in the first place!  Let's wish death on them and attack them with pitchforks! >.<

[OctoberFlash]

I have a love and respect for all generations :3

G3 is actually my favorite, but G3 ponies are what I grew up with (I'm younger than a lot of you, lol). By the time I stopped playing with ponies (before starting to collect them about four years later... lol), G3.5 had come out, and I didn't like G3.5s one bit. They annoyed me to no end.

Now I don't mind them, though, and in fact there's actually one or two G3.5 ponies I actually like, in particular Toola-Roola :3

I really like G1s since they're so pretty, but I really like how G3s look - just, like, the shape of their bodies, their poses, and all that stuff. Even the Core 7 I don't hate, now - not the best idea ever, yeah, but they're not bad.

To me, though, a pony is a pony is a pony. Unless they release a new generation that doesn't even look remotely like a pony - as in, like, they're giant dinosaur figures with hooves called "poneez" or something - I'm gonna love all the ponies existing now and all the ponies to come :3

[WickedWonderland]

I value the aesthetics.

I didn't like the G2s and G3.5s because I don't like the mold, however, G2s do have the redeeming feature of having a few ponies with amazing color combos.

I also hate the teeny tiny G1 babies and I'm not crazy about the G1 baby merponies or the G3 baby ponies. They just don't look right.

[Bag of Magic Food]

Yeah, it's weird, a lot of FiM fans have cooked up this narrative where Lauren Faust is leading a great battle against all vapid girly cartoons, of which Generation 3 My Little Pony is supposed to be the prime example, but come on... Don't you remember the story of how she and another producer watched "The Princess Promenade" for inspiration?  I thought some of the longer movies of that time were fairly engaging, even if I got tired of the ponies' catchphrases, and how almost everything was about yet another "celebration", and how they didn't seem to know what to do with the Core 7.  The shortest cartoons, though, might have left even the little ones scratching their heads at what the point of it all was; short films with a point are kind of a fine art, if you ask me.

Besides, I think the pony toys look different enough from how they look as cartoon characters that you can dissociate one from the other, if you want, and just collect whatever you think looks cool.  That also goes for Generation 1, where it appeared that every pony got slimmed down for animation, and differing media defined the nature of Ponyland very differently.  Another thing I find weird is the Friendship is Magic fans who say that only the G4s look like ponies compared to everything else, or that the toys don't look like the show.  The way I see it, G4s look the least like ponies (next to G3.5, as G4 has the superior eye and ear shapes) because they're extremely stylized for ease of animation, with the big round faces and such, and only the fact that the animators put so much care into making them move and act like ponies pulls you into the illusion that they are.  Taken as static toys, separate from the recognition the show gives, even with good molds it's easy to start to see them as just little deer with swollen mouse heads, and it doesn't help that new poses are slow to come out, and the hair isn't really rooted for ease of styling to look like most of the cartoon characters.  So there's only so much that "show accuracy" can do for them, but eh, that's why we tell kids to use their IMAGINATION!