G1 vs. G4 compare/contrast: What do you love about G1 and/or G4?

[lostpony]

Ah rescue at midnight castle yes I saw that one first, the animation looks like He-Man or Thundercats to me.  I noticed that G1 Tirek chains the ponies to the floor with heavy metal neck collars and in G4 he chains them by the leg.  The 80s are more raw that way.  In both G1 and G4 Tirek doesn't kill any ponies though, and the Alicorns take advantage of that when they give their magic to Twilight without fear of him killing them for it.

I just happened to find out what Zilla size is a few minutes ago so this time I don't have to ask.  I am probably going to buy one in Rarity, I am buying a 6" fashion size Rarity and the same person has a Zilla size and if they combine shipping, I will get it too.

I appreciate the small toys, you can definitely have more of them, but I also like toys to be big and heavy.  I like something I can hold in both hands.  I love the softness of the G1 ponies, and I plan to get some of the bigger G1s too, but the G4 series 5 Funkos are solid and very heavy and I like that a lot.  I got one of those expensive Hikari figures too which is even bigger and has a really nice face but it is hollow and weighs nothing...plus mine suffers from poor assembly quality and has gaps.

[Crystal-Sushi]

I guess I'm a bit of an odd one, as I vastly prefer the G1 cartoon/s and toyline 
I'm unable to watch FiM as the animation seems too... cookie-cutter (I don't quite know how to explain it), flat and bland, plus I generally dislike 'slice-of-life'-type stories. I prefer the G1 animation, despite all its flaws (which I didn't actually notice as a child but now it's fun to try and spot them) it has more 'life' to me and more adventure-ey type themes. Also it's not an incredibly long series, so I can watch the whole thing with my limited patience
The fact that the show focuses on a core group of ponies which rarely vary also annoys me, but this is mainly due to the endless rehashes of the Mane Six that we get in the toyline which always remind me of Core 7...
In regards to the toyline, I prefer the G1 toys for being larger, sturdier, and just the general feeling of quality that they have. The G4 brushables have so little in the way of hair... (I'm not a vinyl/figure collector) and they are just so tiny. I tried to like them, I really did, but alas... I also think that the lack of poses play a big role in this, a pose just gives a pony so much personality....

[lostpony]

Crystal-Sushi,
you are not alone.  Several people say those exact things but usually not so eloquently.

...Except for the cookie-cutter part, maybe that is the cold precision of the computer-generated animation, and you prefer the hand-made animation?

I like both the accuracy of computer generated and the charm and warmth of the handmade style.

[Dragonflitter]

Ahh there is sooo much to say about the G1 and G4 cartoons! I will have to put my thoughts in order and think about that. Everyone else here has made some great points already.

My pros and cons for the toy lines:

G1:
-I like that they are the proportion of real ponies instead of stylized with big heads and little bodies (when G4 first came out, a lot of collectors were calling them 'my little deer' because they aren't really horse/pony shaped)
-I like that they weren't afraid to use a WIDE variety of colors, whereas I notice G4 (and even G3) have purple/pink as a major color on like 50% of the characters
-I like that they have symbols on both sides so you can display them facing different directions
-I love all the different poses, because it adds character to the toys while on display
-I like that even newborn ponies already had a symbol (even if it was always baby-themed, which leads to the question if baby symbols evolve as a pony grows or if a pony would be stuck with, like, a crib symbol even as an adult... lol)
-I like that there are 100+ different characters so there is plenty to collect!
-A lot more variety of species (not just earth/pegasus/unicorn, but flutters, wingers, seaponies, merponies, animal 'cousins', baby dragons, bushwoolies, etc)

G4:
-I like that they have turning heads
-I like that they are still affordable, at about $5
-While I personally don't like that they are small, my friend with a 3-year-old girl says the size is perfect for her small hands (she also really loves the blind bags and carries them around in a little kid purse lol)


In both toylines I dislike the human/EG dolls, but that's just personal preference for me.

[Leave a Whisper]

G1 is closest to my heart, I love the beauty and variety in the sets, colors, symbols and species and the lush animation, the adventure and danger and varied lands and its residents they came in contact with. Plus the toys have quality, thick hair and are not likely to turn into dust or goop or whatever happens when plastic gives its last hurrah for a long time to come. It gave us seven species, two I didn't even know existed till the internet

 It's not perfect though. The voice acting and some of the songs can be irritating, particularly the baby ponies and big bros.

 People today complain about the animation errors, but really that was par for the course of Many 80s and 90s cartoons. My answer to this, I'd like to see you draw 65 highly detailed  episodes and a movie by hand, cuz I sure couldn't do it. Me personally, I like spotting stuff like that in everything from MLP to the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, to Denver the Last Dinosaur.

 Our toys have problems too and its not always due to age. Also the boys poses are so static I can't tell one from another.

G4 did bring adventure back into the show and I do like some of the color schemes and symbols, but the show feels cookie-cutter. Its not the only show that does this though, its okay but not my thing.

 They also brought in a new and old species as well as gender diversity between the species. Changelings and Unipegs/Alicorns. I am okay with the Changelings because they are supposed to be a hybrid of bug and pony. I hope to see Unipegs in more horselike gens.

 I dont like the way they look. Their heads are so unhorselike that it turns me away. I've had a grand total of four G4s in my possession and then I would look at my model horse and G1/G3 collection and get irritated. I gave them away.

I also dislike re-releases of the same toys and its true that MLP is hardly the only toy-or comic based cartoon guilty of this, but even Transformers bring back plenty of obscure characters that most people forgot/disliked/didn't give a crap about. The lack of diversity in the toylines kinda kills it.

The BBs are cute and varied and much easier to display in terms of space, they're kinda like Breyer Mini Whinnies in that respect. Plus Hasbro totally lets you cheat, so its easier to find what you want and they look better then the BB TFs.

Plus they are good for kids who don't like to brush hair.

[Taffeta]

I expect I'm going to reiterate what some people have already said in some parts of my answer to this so apologies for anything that sounds like it was copy pasted from someone else's post - I haven't had a chance to read every single reply.

I am a G1 person, so getting out of the way first and foremost that G4 will never be anywhere close to equal to G1 in my heart or my logic senses as a personal opinion...comparing and contrasting is an interesting discussion point.

I come at this from a different angle than some of the posts I read above. I disagree with the idea that G4 is better characterised, but that is not because of the G1 animation, so my information base is slanted slightly in a different direction. I grew up with the UK comics and books and fact file etc as the definitive word on the ponies and their characters. As a child I had 4 animated episodes, all of which I had some issues with based on the MLP world of the UK and the animated MLP world from the US. For me, growing up, if it disagreed with the comics, it was wrong. If the pony wasn't in the comics/fact file, she didn't exist. And the ponies' true names were the ones used on their cards and in the comics, bar none.  So, based on these four episodes, I came to believe the following things as a child:
1. Milkweed and Tumbleweed, Scoops did not exist. Nor did Cupcake or Truly.
2. Animators got names wrong, eg Sweet Stuff instead of Sweetie
3. Continuity was suspect. I was always mystified by how Revolt of PE seemed to join PE and Lullabye Nursery, as Cuddles and buggy went IN lullabye nursery and then were in PE instead.

Obviously, getting online allowed me to learn that point 1 was a matter of distribution, US vs UK, and 2 was about US marketing names, rather than the names in the UK. (Maybe when they imported it, they thought we kids wouldn't notice. I noticed)

These 'flaws' aside, I did love the episodes I had. I was repulsed by the characterisation of some of the characters in later episodes I saw, though. Particularly Magic Star and Shady, neither of whom lived up to the 'comic default'. Wind Whistler remains the only pony whose G1 animated persona trumps the comic one for me.

And, even if the names of ponies like 'Sweet Stuff' were not wrong, the animation did sometimes get the names wrong. Princess Amethyst/Sparkle is 'Lilac' in Quest of the Princess Ponies and I think there's another name error with one of the boys in Somnambula.

So the G1 animation formed a faulty canon in terms of ponies, their names, how their world worked, etc. There wasn't much continuity or connection between episodes, you didn't see much development from one ep to another (Flutter Valley was an exception) and, sometimes, the cast of ponies changed entirely because of what was on sale.

Of course, MLP Tales counteracts a lot of those issues by having continuity and character development on a deeper level, but that was later and I never saw it till I was in my teens anyway.

This is all pretty negative, reading back over it. But my point really was that to me the animation was irrelevant in my G1 world as a kid. I loved the eps I had but didn't consider them 'proper' pony stories, because that was what the comics did. The fact they only came out here on VHS added to that arbitrariness. You could not watch the whole series through. I think that's only really possible now, but I confess I don't know the order of the episodes beyond the specials.

What I do love about the G1 animation is the quirks. The songs. Individual moments like North Star ringing the bell (this amuses me every time she does it, don't ask xD). And I do like that it has darker elements, but some of the deeper themes - ie Katrina and drugs - I didn't clock onto until I was older. Someone mentioned moralistic stories - I actually think the G1 themes are sometimes buried in the subtext to the point they might not have been obvious to the kids watching. Compared with Thundercats, though, that's a good thing.

So in summary...comics first. G1 animation second. But G1 toys - that's another matter. Hasbro experimented and not all the experiments worked (Flutters) but there was creativity and a sense of genuine love behind these creations somewhere in the process. Someone who painstakingly sat down to create ideas, characters - yes, it was all about a profit, but Barbie in the 1980s proved you didn't need to give the toy a character or even make a different character to sell it. Hasbro created tons of characters, different countries had different lines, and the sheer variety of the ideas they gave to us is something that no generation since can or ever will be able to beat.

In terms of G4. I don't feel Hasbro has that creative spark with the toys, now, because they are creating disposable toys for a fad, rather than a collection. Hasbro in the 1980s pitched the idea of collecting all the ponies throughout the year the toy was available, but G4 is designed to fit the modern mindset of going on to something else within a short time. Some kids won't, of course, but the line repeats and repeats to bring in new people, rather than hold on to them. There is no continuity there, so while I pick up the brushables I find cute, especially when I'm travelling, I don't consider them anything near what G1 devised.

And the TV series. FIM. I honestly have only watched about half of season 1. I apologise to fans of FIM but I really couldn't get into it. I think that the eps I saw were very well crafted, but they didn't reach me in any way. I am someone who can overanalyse for Britain, but I didn't connect to FIM as something that I wanted to dig into deeper. Again, I guess I liked individual character moments - Rarity's distinction between whining and complaining is still my favourite FIM clip ever, and probably why I have more Rarity than any other G4 brushable. (Or maybe it's because she reminds me of Glory). I think what I didn't like about G4 was that it tries too hard to be funny, and because it does, it captures the characters in a cliche that they then struggle to escape from. Thinking back to G1, I'm sure those cliches are there too - but the structure is so different, I don't think it can be compared. I have several issues with G1 animated characterisations, too, but they're different issues.

I actually enjoyed the Equestria Girls stuff more so far (haven't seen Friendship Games yet). I think with Rainbow Rocks it was because of the clear influence of Jem, my other collecting passion. I think that, on reflection, the G4 animation is much like the toy. It's catering to a modern mindset driven by the meme and the popularity of a fad that sparks and then fades. I haven't watched enough to know if this is true for all of the series, but I think there's a very modern and polished mentality to it which gives the sense that it's all designed to be that way. And, because it is, there's no room for the quirks that G1 had. I want to say that G1 is more real, but it's about mediaeval style fantasy society with rainbow coloured ponies, so maybe that's not the right word. But you could sense the human touch and the human error in something that was being created...whereas G4 is sparkly and shiny but doesn't have that touch for me. (I know some people will disagree, this is just my opinion).

I think maybe Jem has influenced this for me, too ,because so many of the people who worked on Jem are so actively involved in the fan events and fandom and many are still passionate about their work on the show. Some of those people also crossed over heavily into MLP, so I have a sense of the kind of minds that went into creating G1. I know there are arguments that similar love went into G4 - and that's not a debate I want to raise in this thread, so at this point, I will end

[DazzleKitty]

When it comes to the toys, G1 wins hands down. There is so much more variety and creativity with them. I also think the G4 ponies are just too small and they all should have been about as big as the fashion style ponies.

I grew up with the G1 cartoons (both the original and Tales). I have to admit, to this day, when I watch the original, I cringe. I just think the animation and voice acting is awful. I do think Firefly's Adventure is pretty awesome, though. But the TV series....ugh. The way the ponies are drawn is super cute most of the time, but everything else about it.... to me, it's bad. I can see why some like it for nostalgic reasons, and simply because it's G1. I did enjoy it as a child, but now that I'm grown up and love animation (big anime fan here), I just see how sloppily put together it was.
However, I am a BIG fan of MLP Tales. I think I may actually like Tales just a little more than FiM. Maybe because it's nostalgia for me. I loved it as a kid. I preferred it over the TV series obviously. I remember watching it after school everyday and I was so stoked when it was finally released on DVD. The main 7 characters are very likeable to me and seem to be characterized pretty well. I like the slice of life feel to the show. And some of the songs are catchy. 
About FiM, I love it. I think it's a great show. Although, I haven't seen past season 2. What I have seen, I like. I need to watch more, definitely. I'm kind of scared to watch past season 2 based on things I've heard but I'm not a picky person. Maybe I should just watch it. But I love the art style and the humor the show has.

So for me, it goes MLP Tales, FiM, then the original TV series.

[Sparkle Pony]

As far as the shows go, I think each is a product of it's time.  G1 has some serious sloppiness issues but I find it really fun due to the sheer weirdness of so many of the plots.  It's pretty much what you would expect for the quality of a show aimed at girls during the 80s.  G4 similarly has very modern sensibilities, which can be a bit of a downfall because I am pretty sure it will not age particularly gracefully.  I enjoy aspects of the show but find it's tends to try too hard to be funny, and it almost never works for me.  I have to admit though, as a person who viscously hates Flash animation, G4 looks really great.  I usually only really enjoy the season openers, finales, and EQG stuff though anymore, although other ones do catch my fancy sometimes.

I can totally see G4 toys being a great size for a child's hands though!  I find them a tad too small for myself though.  I also don't like the feel of their molds as much as G1 and especially G3, which fit into my hand very well.  Besides that though I think the toys would be great, but almost all of the new ones have AWFUL frizzy tails.   The manes are usually fine, but the tails just ruin the whole experience for me, I really wish they would fix that.  Of course, more variety would be a plus too!

[Dragonflitter]

because they are creating disposable toys for a fad, rather than a collection. Hasbro in the 1980s pitched the idea of collecting all the ponies throughout the year the toy was available, but G4 is designed to fit the modern mindset of going on to something else within a short time. Some kids won't, of course, but the line repeats and repeats to bring in new people, rather than hold on to them.

I think this is valuable insight into the differences between the two lines. Very well said! It feels like the current line of brushables and Styling Size ponies is all about bringing in new fans who might have just discovered the tv show, and also producing smaller and less expensive toys that parents won't feel bad about splurging on if a kid suddenly spots a blind bag, etc. while in the toy store. While the 80's line was about developing the young fanbase they had--"Be a My Little Pony mommy" was one of the advertising taglines, implying you have to care for all those little toys you had. And not just MLP but many toylines back then emphasized the "collect them all!" idea (it was big in the 90's too).

[SunbeamV]

I prefer g1, almost entirely for toy quality reasons as I'm not much of a pony cartoon person outside of g3. G1 ponies are made much sturdier and with better quality materials, whereas my g4 brushables are proving more difficult to maintain because they're fading/deteriorating so quickly and have rougher hair.

Though I understand that's a case of them both being products of their time, as regulations on toy safety and the mindsets of companies and consumers alike have changed a lot in 30 years. I think it's quite likely that the growing list of materials disallowed in children's toys these days has affected how stable they can make the plastic/synthetic hair, and I notice with many things that the 80s and 90s had more of a "built to last" mentality, with today's market being much more "cheap and easily replaceable" oriented. I find it particularly noticeable with computers, and well, ponies. 

[FantasticFirefly]

In terms of G4. I don't feel Hasbro has that creative spark with the toys, now, because they are creating disposable toys for a fad, rather than a collection. Hasbro in the 1980s pitched the idea of collecting all the ponies throughout the year the toy was available, but G4 is designed to fit the modern mindset of going on to something else within a short time. Some kids won't, of course, but the line repeats and repeats to bring in new people, rather than hold on to them. There is no continuity there, so while I pick up the brushables I find cute, especially when I'm travelling, I don't consider them anything near what G1 devised.

This is it exactly. And, Hasbro's 80's marketing would have worked perfectly on me. I DID want them all. my parents had other ideas. If I were a child who got toys for things besides maybe ONE on birthday/Christmas I would have had one of those massive, massive childhood collections. I am not the only "child" who used Hasbro leaflets and annual checklists for creating dream/wishlists.

G4 I do the same. get one here or there that strikes my fancy. G1 I collect reissues, but other lines are precisely want you say. marketed as a passing, brief fancy so each new wave can easily buy the core characters, and any long term pony obsessed child is annoyed with the lack of variety and constant reissues of the same ponies over and over.

[Wardah]

In terms of G4. I don't feel Hasbro has that creative spark with the toys, now, because they are creating disposable toys for a fad, rather than a collection. Hasbro in the 1980s pitched the idea of collecting all the ponies throughout the year the toy was available, but G4 is designed to fit the modern mindset of going on to something else within a short time. Some kids won't, of course, but the line repeats and repeats to bring in new people, rather than hold on to them. There is no continuity there, so while I pick up the brushables I find cute, especially when I'm travelling, I don't consider them anything near what G1 devised.

This is it exactly. And, Hasbro's 80's marketing would have worked perfectly on me. I DID want them all. my parents had other ideas. If I were a child who got toys for things besides maybe ONE on birthday/Christmas I would have had one of those massive, massive childhood collections. I am not the only "child" who used Hasbro leaflets and annual checklists for creating dream/wishlists.

G4 I do the same. get one here or there that strikes my fancy. G1 I collect reissues, but other lines are precisely want you say. marketed as a passing, brief fancy so each new wave can easily buy the core characters, and any long term pony obsessed child is annoyed with the lack of variety and constant reissues of the same ponies over and over.

They still pitch the idea of collecting them all. It's just they feel the time they are interested in them is shorter than it was in the 80s. And unfortunately that is true with tech toys grabbing their attention as well as the media pushing girls to grow up too fast. It's maybe a couple of years before girls they decide they are "too old for ponies" and start cooing over boy bands and posting selfies on snapchat.

[Baby Sugarberry]

There really has been a huge paradigm shift in the way toys are made, marketed and consumed.

The demographics have stratified over the decades quite significantly - in the 80's, it wasn't unusual to find MLP being bought and played with by kids as young as three and into their mid-teens.  That kind of spread is unheard of these days for most toy lines.  Hasbro did focus on their core demographic (6-10, if I had to guess) but part of what made MLP so successful was the broad appeal.  All my friends had ponies, even the ones who were more into Barbie.  Now toys aren't made to last because the companies that make them know the vast majority of the kids are going to be 'done' with them well before they fall apart.  They only have to survive a couple years before most kids are onto the next big thing. 

[Tak]

I've seen both. All of both. Although it's been a while for g1. I remember g1 being very similar to other cartoons of it's time. Care bears for instance. The story lines are the basic bad guys do bad things or bad things happen and the characters must find a way to fix everything.

I actually prefer g4. They do repeat several ideas, but less violence, promoting kindness to others, and zecora.

As far as toys go... want them all!

[Jorgito93]

You had a good point, yes G1 had more variety so the same child could collect ponies for years and have just new ones every year, but now most kids aren't interessed much in toys as they were before, mostly because of tablets and stuff like that.Kids have a shorter attention span for toys, so the line doesn't need to captivate them for a long time.