Took the plunge and watched some G1 specials

[Leave a Whisper]

I hate the term "Mary Sue" as it really doesn't explain the issue.  Megan has no conflict, and the ponies follow her without question.  That is not a character I can care about.  It doesn't help that the two week-long pilot had the ponies more or less helpless until Megan showed up.

Danny and Molly are not as annoying because they aren't as domineering.  Danny seemed to be more on the same level as the ponies, thinking things through with them rather than dictating to them.  Molly was just kind of there.  Interesting the one character not made into a toy and the token boy felt the most natural among the ponies.

Speaking of the pilot, avoid it if you have not already seen it.  It is one irritation after another.

The pilot is not bad. Not my favorite but not bad. It has pretty animation and some iconic songs.

[LadyMoondancer]

I loved the pilot, the villain and animation were amazing!    I wouldn't have been upset if they hadn't written Megan into it, but I didn't mind her there either.  (Also she actually dressed like a normal farm kid there, hallelujah.)  To be honest, I was always very disappointed that the animation of the movie and MLP & Friends weren't in that animation style.  They looked so beautiful and horse-like in RaMC.

I wouldn't read "lots of kids had Megan & Sundance" as an indication that ALL those kids liked her in the show.  I mean, I'm sure some did.  But for others it would have been a case of "That doll is pretty!  So is the pony!", and that's basically as deep as it goes.  Like, I hated Megan-in-the-show as a kid, but I loooved looking at her doll in the brochures because she had a great dress and such nicely styled hair and Sundance had a really cute bridle.  Ha ha, saying it now it sounds shallow!  But with toys appearances do count for a lot.

[Al-1701]

I meant The End of Flutter Valley series pilot.  Sorry.

[LadyMoondancer]

Ohhh, The End of Flutter Valley!  That one seemed really repetitive to me.  The flutter ponies are caught!  Wait, they're escaping!  Wait, they're caught again!

I know a lot of people love Morning Glory, but I couldn't stand her.  "The witches just tried to catch us, but we shouldn't do anything about them. Yay, sunshine and flowers! =D  Oh no the witches caught everyone, who could have foreseen this?  D="  *Honeysuckle turns to look at the camera like she's on The Office*

The biggest thing with EoFV, though, is if the Stonebacks are just misunderstood and want to be friends . . . why did they chew through the rope bridge the ponies etc were standing on?

Be sure to watch for the anatomically correct bull in End of Flutter Valley, ha ha!  There's also a tiny nude painting in Bright Lights, in the villain's mansion.

[Al-1701]

The furbobs made me want to hurt something.  Especially the resolution that resolution which again brings us to Megan.  Because she says the stonebacks want to be the furbobs' friends, suddenly they are.  Forget they tried to inflict grave bodily harm to them earlier in the episode.

[Lore-Lei]

Another thing... Where do these ponies live, actually?

[Al-1701]

The ponies live in a region called Ponyland (literally "the country of ponies") which either includes Dream Valley or is a part of Dream Valley.  The writer's guide described Ponyland as being the size of a national park suggesting the former.

[Wildshadow]

Well there goes me ever singing like Morning Glory for the "stretch yourself to the limit" in public =P love singing the song like that

Sad all the hate to the episodes, =P I quite enjoyed it but I guess because Surprise and Spike and lots of other things. Oooh! The 'Witch Watch' part, I smile every time I hear it. 

[Leave a Whisper]

I meant The End of Flutter Valley series pilot.  Sorry.

Ohhh. My bad. Flutter Valley would have been okay if they hadn't drawn it out for ten eps. :s

I liked the Furbobs. Better then the bushwoolie hivemind. I am of the opinion that if you pair off 1 bushwoolie and 1 furbob apiece for a task, they might be able to accomplish something.

One complaint I don't understand is the animation. It's so beautiful and lush, though it did get sloppy towards the end of the series. I just don't see how Flash can compare to well done Hand Drawn.

[LadyMoondancer]

Well there goes me ever singing like Morning Glory for the "stretch yourself to the limit" in public =P love singing the song like that

LOL, it's not like I'm going to be standing with arms crossed glaring at you if you sing it.  I support all collector-made stuff.  It's just a cartoon; it would be ridiculous to judge a real person because they like a cartoon character that I don't.    (I have friends who love Rick & Morty while I despise that entire show--but hey, those people are still my friends!)  So if you want to sing, I say go for it.

I didn't mind the furbobs.  The bushwoolies did get on my nerve sometimes but I was mostly okay with them.

I do wonder if they're literally one big species and the furbobs/bushwoolies are subspecies or what.

[Taffeta]

I hate the term "Mary Sue" as it really doesn't explain the issue.  Megan has no conflict, and the ponies follow her without question.  That is not a character I can care about.  It doesn't help that the two week-long pilot had the ponies more or less helpless until Megan showed up.

I don't really like the term Mary Sue, either, but, certainly in anime writing communities I know, the label gets used a fair bit for characters in series (not in fanfic necessarily) who have no conflict, who everyone loves, who always find the answer and who are essentially "too perfect". Noike in Tenchi Muyo is a classic example. Megan is that person in My Little Pony. None of the ponies are perfect. Most of them have some issues, or conflict, or something going on at some point. Megan's conflict is who feeds TJ when she's away? She's a Mary Sue to me for these reasons.

I don't really remember End of Flutter Valley but I remember it being long and kinda dull. Wasn't it meant to be a sequel to the movie, though? A feature length thing they broke up into parts to air on TV? I'm sure I have/had a VHS with it somewhere as one long movie like thing...

@LM, this is probably where I'm weird, but the doll put me off Megan even more. I disliked blond, blue eyed dolls as a kid because all the dolls around were like that when I was small. No variety. Nothing. I hated Barbie for the same reason as the UK at that time had only blond and blue eyed grinny dolls. I don't remember ever seeing Jem and nor does my mother, but that had a really short run and I was probably just too young anyway. Otherwise I'd have been all over them. But Megan was blond and blue eyed and so I subconsciously rejected her.

(Before anyone criticises me for this, I was a blond haired blue eyed kid, although not so blond now my hair has gone darker. It was just the monotony. My ponies had ethnic diversity. I wanted dolly ethnic diversity too, and just didn't get it. I am so jealous of kids now - not only are there dolls from every single skin tone, there are also Monster High and EA High and Equestria...all those colours and varieties and differences such a mile away from what was around during my childhood.)

Megan might have appealed to me more if I hadn't somehow associated her in my mind with Barbie for this reason.

The Bushwoolies are quite cute. They're nowhere near the dragons in epicness, maybe largely because they are a collective (to quote Sweetie, "something that is one, even when it is many",) and the dragons are all individuals, but they're cute. I like them.

[Al-1701]

Bushwoolies: Technicolor talking tribbles.

I actually explained Megan being blond haired and blue eyed to having Scandinavian ancestry.  My pony world has a lot of Norse lore (they have a natural Bifrost connecting their world to Megan's ranch).

[Leave a Whisper]

I hate the term "Mary Sue" as it really doesn't explain the issue.  Megan has no conflict, and the ponies follow her without question.  That is not a character I can care about.  It doesn't help that the two week-long pilot had the ponies more or less helpless until Megan showed up.

I don't really like the term Mary Sue, either, but, certainly in anime writing communities I know, the label gets used a fair bit for characters in series (not in fanfic necessarily) who have no conflict, who everyone loves, who always find the answer and who are essentially "too perfect". Noike in Tenchi Muyo is a classic example. Megan is that person in My Little Pony. None of the ponies are perfect. Most of them have some issues, or conflict, or something going on at some point. Megan's conflict is who feeds TJ when she's away? She's a Mary Sue to me for these reasons.

I don't really remember End of Flutter Valley but I remember it being long and kinda dull. Wasn't it meant to be a sequel to the movie, though? A feature length thing they broke up into parts to air on TV? I'm sure I have/had a VHS with it somewhere as one long movie like thing...

@LM, this is probably where I'm weird, but the doll put me off Megan even more. I disliked blond, blue eyed dolls as a kid because all the dolls around were like that when I was small. No variety. Nothing. I hated Barbie for the same reason as the UK at that time had only blond and blue eyed grinny dolls. I don't remember ever seeing Jem and nor does my mother, but that had a really short run and I was probably just too young anyway. Otherwise I'd have been all over them. But Megan was blond and blue eyed and so I subconsciously rejected her.

(Before anyone criticises me for this, I was a blond haired blue eyed kid, although not so blond now my hair has gone darker. It was just the monotony. My ponies had ethnic diversity. I wanted dolly ethnic diversity too, and just didn't get it. I am so jealous of kids now - not only are there dolls from every single skin tone, there are also Monster High and EA High and Equestria...all those colours and varieties and differences such a mile away from what was around during my childhood.)

Megan might have appealed to me more if I hadn't somehow associated her in my mind with Barbie for this reason.

The Bushwoolies are quite cute. They're nowhere near the dragons in epicness, maybe largely because they are a collective (to quote Sweetie, "something that is one, even when it is many",) and the dragons are all individuals, but they're cute. I like them.

Lol at Barbie. Yeah Jerrica dolls kinda reminds me of Barbie dolls too.

[Taffeta]

Lol at Barbie. Yeah Jerrica dolls kinda reminds me of Barbie dolls too.

Maybe a good time to mention I also hate Jem/Jerrica. (Although I promise that's for reasons other than blondness xD honest.)

[LadyMoondancer]

I wonder if I would have had Megan be the ponies' friend in play if I'd had the doll as a kid.  The few dolls I did have (a SSC doll, a Barbie, and a few small soft-bodied dolls from the 70s) were always villains trying to kidnap the ponies.  I wasn't into dolls much.

Blonde girls with blue eyes did seem to be a "thing" in the 80s in a weird way that they aren't today.  Like it was color-coding that they were the "good guy."  Like, "Here's Lady Lovely Locks, and she's BLONDE.  See, kids?  You can tell she's good because she's BLONDE.  Now over here we have Duchess RavenWaves and you can tell she's evil because her hair's, ew, black."

There were exceptions of course, but it was pretty common.