If you could redo one thing about a MLP show . . .

[LadyMoondancer]

What would you change about a MLP show (any generation) if you could change one thing?

MLP & Friends - I would snap my fingers and magically change all the animation to "Rescue at Midnight Castle" style animation.  (If I could change TWO things, I would get rid of the incidental music--not the songs, but that random background music that was always the same.)

MLP Tales - I would make some of the main characters pegasi and unicorns.  Even if there wasn't any magic in the show, I still want to see pegasi and unicorns, darn it!

G3 - I would give them villains.

G4 - I'd change Pinkie Pie back to being Surprise.  I just love Surprise.

[Phekzhen]

MLP&Friends: I would cut down on how many characters there are. I recall there being 50+ named characters. No one can have any personality like that! Perhaps be like the original movie, where there were only a handful of interesting characters. When you think about it, being able to wish anything or being a brave flier is a lot better for saving the day than being addicted to ice cream, or do whatever Shady does.

MLPTales: More episodes! I would have liked there to be more about their culture and world. Did they live somewhere seperate from MLP&Friends? Were they linked to Friendship Gardens in some way?

G3: I didn't watch those movies, so I can't comment.

FiM: I'd want to see the greater world more. Is Equestria the country? Continent? World? Do Celestia/Luna go around a spherical world with the sun and moon, or can they just sit in one spot? Is the world flat and finite? What do the other races (dragons, griffons, donkeys, mules, cows) think of the entire natural order being controlled by two ponies (though Celestia can do it all on her own, if she really wanted to)?

[juliepinetree]

My Little Pony and Friends - Midnight Castle animation!  (So with you on that one!)
My Little Pony Tales - Unicorns and Pegasi! I have to agree again!
G3 - Better story writing.
My Little Pony FIM - I would add the other ponies from G1, sea ponies, flutter ponies and such!

[Moonracer]

MLP&Friends: I would cut down on how many characters there are. I recall there being 50+ named characters. No one can have any personality like that! Perhaps be like the original movie, where there were only a handful of interesting characters. When you think about it, being able to wish anything or being a brave flier is a lot better for saving the day than being addicted to ice cream, or do whatever Shady does.

Well, you can't really blame the writers for it. For one they were in a major rush when making the episodes: they were basically, for the lack of better term, churning the scripts on a daily basis in a production line fashion. They didn't have time to develop the story properly, and they based the characters and their personalities on their descriptions in the production bible and whatever material Hasbro has provided them with. That's one thing.

Besides, the episodes of the show was essentially a 20+ minutes-long commercial. So they had to squeeze in as many characters as possible because that way Hasbro could possibly sell more toys.

Same thing goes for other similar cartoons from the 80s like "He-Man" or "Transformers".

Now, unless you're a really good writer, having a big main cast which can go up to like 10+ characters or so, can be really problematic and challenging. Mainly because there's a risk that only a fraction of the characters will have a well-developed personality, while the rest will basically end up being cardboard cut-outs with a cookie-cutter personality.

The aforementioned cartoons plus the "MLP and Friends" cartoon are a good example of this. Granted, writers were in a huge rush, and they didn't even have time to make proper edits to their scripts.

I'm not saying that it can't be done: take a look at "Avatar The Last Airbender" for example: the cast of characters was pretty impressive for a children's show, but the creators still managed to flesh them out properly making them interesting and believable at the same time.

So one of my solutions, for a show like " MLP and Friends", would've been to narrow down the mane cast, have some characters as recurring ones and create some story arcs with them. Or, if they'd still want a bigger cast, have them actually developed.

As for the animation, I guess we can all agree that the old MLP would've been great if it had the animation similar to the one in "Rescue at Midnight Castle"... well, maybe they can make the sea ponies look a little more better: in RaMC they looked a bit creepy... O_O

[RAMChYLD]

Hope I won't get keelhauled for this.

... Nevermind. Better to be safe than get murdered by ninjas hired by the bronies who assaulted me at Facebook, TVTropes and Amazon.

... Oh, heck. Gonna regret this...

FIM: Hoo boy. Where do I start. It's a freaking roller coaster ride, and Season 2 caused me to cross the despair event horizon and become disillusioned with the show and nearly also almost the entire franchise as a whole.

On the voice acting front, I'd have Chantal Strand as Fluttershy instead of Diamond Tiara. I have my reasons for this, but mainly because Chantal Strand is more suited for shrinking violet roles like Fluttershy- in her history, she was Bijou and Cassie. Diamond Tiara can be someone else. Maybe Cheryl Chase (Angelica Picklessssssss).

Now on to the episodes, specifically S2, which is the shark-jumping point in my eyes. I'd wipe Discord and Chrysalis from existence. I preferred this show the way post-two-parter-premiere season 1 was. Putting in all those shout-outs and in the process reduce the educational content, and kneeling to the "bronies" call for villains, killed the series for me. If I can change the past, villains would be erased and the stories will be reverted to said Season 1 and Tales style slice-of-life. With the slice of life format restored and most of the shout-outs quelled, the E/I logo will return naturally. Now with Chrysalis out of the way, I'd change Part 2 of the Pony Wedding to be a combination of Arthur's D.W. Thinks Big (suitably adapted into CMC teamwork vs Diamond Tiara), and Tales' "Sister Of The Bride" (which involves the Mane 6), in the process letting Hasbro's in-house writers sweeten up the story a bit. Imo there's just much more potential in all these stories combined compared to the way Part 2 of the Pony Wedding turned out. To elaborate on the D.W. Thinks Big Adaptation: through manipulation,  Diamond Tiara's father has secured her with various important roles in the wedding, which was supposed to go to each of the CMC. Diamond Tiara then proceeds to mess up in each and every one of the role, and each time the CMC would save the day. This would pave the way to the CMC finally realizing their talents and getting their cutie marks at the end of the episode.

To me, D.W. Thinks Big happens to be my most favorite episode of the entire Arthur series, ever. To date, it is my go-to benchmark for wedding episodes- the more similar, the better

G3 - I would give them villains.

Uh, that happening would probably wipe me off my MLP fandom The first question that came out of my mouth when the friend tried to drag me back into MLP at the time of G3 was "is there any villains?" since I didn't really like MLP&Friends for the villains and held Tales in high regard  for the reasons of lack of villains and it's slice of life format. If she'd answer yes, I would've aborted all attempts at going back into MLP and wouldn't be here today. And in the event that I do end up here anyhow because of another friend's crisis, I would've vanished as soon as the crisis was averted, and would hold the opinion that Tales was the only good MLP series ever.

[BabyMedley]

I would only change the singing in MLP & Friends. Some voice actors back then didn't do a very good job.  Sometimes they turned out, but a lot of the time watching them again I cringe.

Oh, and for G3 cartoons I would make Rainbow Dash not sound like Zsa Zsa Gabor. That killed them for me.

[Malicieuse]

The funeral scene/shot in FIM "hearts and hooves day".
Seriously...why? Out of all the things you could have shown while saying a pony is too old...why that?
It's just so random and pointlessly morbid/sad. They could have done a bazillion things that would have been actually funny/fun. I really wonder what that writer was thinking.
Than again, i hate that entire episode and like to pretend it never happened.

[hathorcat]

I am easy ...its a head and heart thing...I kind of like the way the &Friends and &Tales series are done...they suit the time and the age for me so I wouldnt want anything to change. But at the same time in a sensible way I understand that there are tweaks which could improve them.

[scarletjul]

MLP n' Friends- There's a lot about this show that makes it specifically 80!s and I think there's something special about that.  So production issues aside, the only thing I would really change is less Megan.  I don't want to get ri of her completely but I can't believe the ponies need her for every.  Single.  Problem.  Less Megan might mean less useless songs, too (and I actually like songs usuall.). Just saying. 

Didn't watch Tales so moving on. . .

G3 - I would've liked to see a villain or two but I would have been happy to just see some boys in that world.  And more adults in general. 

G4 -  I would really like to see more interaction between the main 6 and other characters, particularly their families.  Applejack is very close to her family and Rarity has Sweetie Belle.  Why did we only learn that Twilight has a brother in the s2 finale?  Where are Rainbow's and Fluttershy's families?  Do they have friends beyond the main 6 that they see besides their one special episodes?  Even a line or two ("I just heard from Gilda.") would make me happy.  But I realize from a writing standpoint this may not be efficient or possible.

[Elisto]

Aw, looks like my post didn't go through... trying this again.

MLP & Friends: I would get rid of the horrendous "baby talk" all the baby ponies have. They may have "baby" in their name, but it's obnoxious and they're way too old to still be confusing "me" and "I". There's other stuff I think would improve the series, but I'm actually reasonably OK with everything else, and even think the ponies' personalities are developed just fine and there aren't too many of them.

MLP Tales: I really dislike this series, so anything I'd want to see changed would make it not MLP Tales anymore, so I'll just leave that one alone.

G3 and 3.5: haven't seen enough of either to have an opinion.

G4: a little less slice-of-life-y, a little more fantasy/action-y.

[LadyMoondancer]

I, too, hated the baby talk. When I played with my baby ponies I made them talk like normal kids.  It's kind of weird because they talked normally up through MLP: The Movie and then suddenly, boom, baby talk.

[ApertureScience]

Original Cartoon:  Fewer parted episodes.  I'd rather see just one part, not four.
Tales:  G2 ponies.  They need love.
G3 Cartoons:  I think these cartoons were a little insulting to the average intelligence of a little girl (not all of them; probably just Charming Birthday and Meet the Ponies).  I'd have them more like FiM.  I did like Princess Promenade and Runaway Rainbow, but the other ones were kind of lame...
FiM:  Use of ponies from other generations.  Not in the story, just in the background.  It would be like a shoutout to the fans of the older gens, Bronies would do their research and perhaps learn to accept earlier gens a little more, and Hasbro wouldn't get in trouble over the copyright issues.

[reanna-mator]

What would you change about a MLP show (any generation) if you could change one thing?

MLP & Friends - I would snap my fingers and magically change all the animation to "Rescue at Midnight Castle" style animation.  (If I could change TWO things, I would get rid of the incidental music--not the songs, but that random background music that was always the same.)

MLP Tales - I would make some of the main characters pegasi and unicorns.  Even if there wasn't any magic in the show, I still want to see pegasi and unicorns, darn it!

G3 - I would give them villains.

G4 - I'd change Pinkie Pie back to being Surprise.  I just love Surprise.

Wow, your MLP and Friends change was the exact one that I had in mind.

MLP Tales - Does a North American DVD release count?

G3 - More distinctive characters. The cartoons are entertaining enough but they'd be better if more of the characters had personalities apart from the sorts of things they like to do.

G4 - I can't honestly think of anything I'd change. Though, looking at other suggestions, I think that more nods to previous generations would be great.

[Al-1701]

MLP&F:  Not get rid of Dream Castle.
Tales:  Unicorns and Pegasi.
G3:  Actually write something.
G3.5 and Newborn Cuties:  Not do them period.
FiM:  Make a spinoff to put a spotlight on more ponies.

[Pinecone]

I'd make it so every generation had Wind Whistler in it.