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My Little Pony FiM Community |OT2| I just don't know what went wrong!

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Tenumi

Banned
QTOKCol.jpg
As usual 1 and 2 win and 3 and 4 have freaky feet

Yeah... 1, 2, and 5 for me. 4 and possibly 3 would be good, too, if it wasn't for the feet.
 

akira28

Member
Rarity personality-wise has plenty of flaws: not exactly generous (see end of ACW), uses child labour (Sleepless in Ponyville), racist like the donkey above mentioned and lies a lot (Sweet and Elite). But she's fun as a character and usually delivers the best lines. On top of that she also has the best voice actor.

She reminds me of the Sugarbakers from Designing Women, mixed with some kind of general poshness.
 

$200

Banned
Season 2 DVD arrived today. Haven't opened yet but damn, it has the by far the best cover and back cover of all the pone DVDs I have. It's even got Discord and Chrysalis on it.
 

Videoneon

Member
They opened it...

They must work for Gamestop!!!!!!! Nice picture by the way, DrForester, and enjoy the game. I'm still on the fence as far as making the purchase.

I just saw some parts of the Tomodachi wa Mahou pilot. At first I thought the OP was stupid, and then...I kept listening to it. Now I have a tab of it in my browser. The visuals itself are okay, they just spliced together a bunch of S1 clips, but they were well-chosen. Except for the end. They have the names and VA's shown for each character throughout the OP...which is eh. The voices are underwhelming in the first episode, but when I watched Episode 8 (a RAW, no subs) the voices seemed much more developed. The episodes have new titles in Japan too. Apparently S1 and S2 have been ordered for broadcast, I do hope that it does well there. I will probably watch sporadically.


---

Have any of you guys heard of a little project called "Fighting is Magic"? It is now defunct (RIP) but it was just a handful of pony fans who came together and produced a fighting game on their own. Visuals, systems, and all. The music was crafted by like two people, and VA's for each of the main six were auditioned for (and chosen quite well, I'd add.) It was to be distributed for free.

Well I bring this up because I've been a music kick from the game recently. It's fucking great, especially for what it was. Some links for ya'll:

Twilight Sparkle's theme
Applejack's theme
Rainbow Dash's theme
Pinkie Pie's theme
Fluttershy's theme
Rarity's theme
 

n8

Unconfirmed Member
Have any of you guys heard of a little project called "Fighting is Magic"?...

As you may not know (just judging based on what you said), the devs behind the project are still at work on a fighting game, with a lot more power behind it.

- They have the Z-engine (skullgirls's engine) to work with now.
- They have Lauren Faust (mind behind FiM) to create characters.
 

PaulloDEC

Member
Have any of you guys heard of a little project called "Fighting is Magic"? It is now defunct (RIP) but it was just a handful of pony fans who came together and produced a fighting game on their own. Visuals, systems, and all. The music was crafted by like two people, and VA's for each of the main six were auditioned for (and chosen quite well, I'd add.) It was to be distributed for free.

Well I bring this up because I've been a music kick from the game recently. It's fucking great, especially for what it was. Some links for ya'll:

Twilight Sparkle's theme
Applejack's theme
Rainbow Dash's theme
Pinkie Pie's theme
Fluttershy's theme
Rarity's theme

There was some great music in Fighting is Magic. I've had the main theme as my mobile ringtone for a couple of months now.
 

Videoneon

Member
150px-Pinkie_Pie_making_a_face_S2E13.png


Yeah I was pretty sure most of ponyGAF had heard of Fighting is Magic, but...yeah. Contingency planning.

What a lame way to go out. It had been demoed at EVO and received surprising support from regular FGC people (though I don't think the "big name" players played it), and I believe Fluttershy (last of the mane6) was almost finished or about to be worked on or something.
 

$200

Banned
150px-Pinkie_Pie_making_a_face_S2E13.png


Yeah I was pretty sure most of ponyGAF had heard of Fighting is Magic, but...yeah. Contingency planning.

What a lame way to go out. It had been demoed at EVO and received surprising support from regular FGC people (though I don't think the "big name" players played it), and I believe Fluttershy (last of the mane6) was almost finished or about to be worked on or something.

They were actually only about a month away from the planned release date (some time in March I think) when they were told to stop. I still think they could have done more instead of giving up - for example passing the game files to someone in China and have the game released there or separate the game into parts (one with game engine the other with characters) and "leak" them separately on /mlp/ and then people would be able to put them together. I guess they didn't want to risk getting any potential lawsuit from Hasbro.
 
Have any of you guys heard of a little project called "Fighting is Magic"? It is now defunct (RIP) but it was just a handful of pony fans who came together and produced a fighting game on their own. Visuals, systems, and all. The music was crafted by like two people, and VA's for each of the main six were auditioned for (and chosen quite well, I'd add.) It was to be distributed for free.
You know they're making it a non-mlp-related game and Lauren Faust donated her talents to helpw ith character design? So the game's still comingout someday, just not as MLP.
 

Cheerilee

Member
You know they're making it a non-mlp-related game and Lauren Faust donated her talents to help with character design? So the game's still comingout someday, just not as MLP.

More than just the character design, I think she's actually hand-drawing all of the character animations.

https://twitter.com/Fyre_flye/status/318143098121240577

8oFgzNl.jpg


That's an "animation disc". There's a light bulb (switched off in the pic) underneath her table (which has a big circular hole cut into it, unlike other tables), so the white plastic part of the disc glows when she turns the light on.

There's clearly a background taped in as the bottom layer (which probably means she's drawing the backgrounds too), so when she puts another piece of paper over top of that background layer (aligned by those pegs), the background shows through (because of the backlight), and she can essentially draw a character onto the background without actually drawing onto the background.

And then she can add another new piece of paper on top and draw a second pose for the character, knowing exactly where her first pose was in relation to the background.

And then she can start drawing the in-between frames. She puts on another new piece of paper (time to start numbering them), and since she can see both previous drawings and the background all at the same time, she can draw the in-between character exactly as it should exist halfway between those two drawings.

Keep on dividing (and setting aside the frames that you're done with, and eventually you'll have enough frames for a full animation.

If she was just doing character designs, I doubt she would've dug up a tool as cool as her animation disc.
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
I would really like to dig up a trade show trailer for FiM. Sure it's out there, but searching for FiM trailer on anything gets you nothing but mock ups.

I don't think it would be all that impressive. I don't think the trailer really would have showcased anything special about the show. I was mocking of the show when news started leaking, but now I will just wait and see. It's made by a lot of the same people who brought us FiM and I think they've earned the right to have their new work viewed first. Especially by someone trying to say it's sexist or promotes a bad message. That story says it went so wrong, yet they haven't seen it yet. For all they know this could be a very top notch show for that demographic, and a far cry more positive an influence than the stuff they assume it will be exactly like.
 

Myke Greywolf

Ambassador of Goodwill
That story says it went so wrong, yet they haven't seen it yet.
They have seen the trailer - promotional material that is supposed to transmit the gist and style of the movie and make you want to see it if you feel that they are suited for you. In that aspect, they couldn't have failed any harder if they tried, and now they are getting the word of mouth that the trailer deserves - even if it may not be the one that the movie itself deserves. That is why I'm saying that they should have gone a different way with the trailer.
 

Cheerilee

Member

I was never able to swallow the Pretty Pretty Princess Promenade that was the season 3 finale. I felt that it was a bit contrived, and it left a sour taste in my mouth. See, all this time we’ve been watching a show centered around friendship and learning to respect and tolerate others of all walks of life, the end goal of which was apparently to become royalty. I’m somewhat concerned that it sends mixed messages to little girls. Implying that all girls should want to grow up to become princesses is destructive. It’s bad enough that “girl” and “boy” toys are steadfastly holding onto their old-school ways. I was under the impression that My Little Pony wanted to shake gender barriers, not reinforce them.

Season 3 didn't imply that all girls want to grow up to become princesses. It said that Twilight gets there. There were a number of other girls in that season. And Lauren Faust intended to have Twilight become Celestia's successor all along, she just might not have had it happen so soon.

MLP:FiM was centered around the idea that little girls should not be force-fed outdated female tropes and be wedged into specific gender roles at a young age. Each character represents different sets of personality traits. Some are very femme, while others are boyish or somewhere in between. Sometimes there are conflicts and they don’t get along, but that’s the beauty of real life; we don’t fit into nice, cookie-cutter packages. You might not be the same as someone else, but you can still be their friend despite it.
Until your friend becomes a princess. Then you're not allowed to be happy for them, you're supposed to shun them, because princesses are destructive and unrealistic ideals.

Lauren Faust saw this meme image on the Internets. She basically said that it's horrible and unfair and that the people who made it can go fuck themselves.

All that made these characters independent and unique is completely shattered.
This is absolutely not something you can infer from a trailer. It's not "the word of mouth that the trailer deserves."
 

Myke Greywolf

Ambassador of Goodwill
Season 3 didn't imply that all girls want to grow up to become princesses. It said that Twilight gets there. There were a number of other girls in that season. And Lauren Faust intended to have Twilight become Celestia's successor all along, she just might not have had it happen so soon.
I've had plenty of recent dealings with 6-7 year old girls, thanks to my son's school. There is a disturbing, self-feeding pattern of entitlement that involves the parents and the media and depictions of princesses as creatures of perfect beauty, granted the ability to be the permanent center of attentions and to order around everyone around at will. Given the chance, most little girls will hold on with great tenacity to that ideal, that feeling that they can be special without even trying, just by adhering to this image. They then go on to enthusiastically eat up everything that may position them closer to where they want to stand, and the parents oblige because they're their special little girls and deserve it. The toy makers say "thank you".

Given this, it's no wonder that corporations like Hasbro see them as easy prey for their low-bar marketing efforts. Lauren Faust started out by not even wanting to make the alicorns "princesses" - therefore, Twilight would not have become a princess by succeeding to Celestia. We all know how that worked out, and the subtle concessions to corporate dictate that culminated with this season 3 finale which, however well handled by the team behind the show, still represented the end of a road - the transition from a show solidly based on values of friendship, to one that seems to be centered around the notion of considering if a tiara looks good on a pretty pony's head. From here forth, there shall be the persisting feeling that no matter how well stories may be written, they are mere accomodations to corporate dictate looking to perpetuate the aforementioned "princess trap", and not the end result of legitimate artistic visions that happen to be capitalized. Equestria Girls is only the next example of this, and there will be others. This is the main feminist beef with all this situation, I guess. It's not that I don't know that this is the nature of the beast, but this is a bit disappointing. We're lucky that the characters originally conceived by Lauren are so strong that Hasbro would be hard-pressed to make them become totally devoid of any depth or appeal. I will still be an inconditional fan of the characters (they are what made me a big fan of the show - if they become flanderized, I'll just see those as different characters), but each story will have to prove its worth to me from now on. The proof shall be in the pudding, and I reserve the right to be a skeptic.
 

PaulloDEC

Member
Season 3 didn't imply that all girls want to grow up to become princesses. It said that Twilight gets there. There were a number of other girls in that season. And Lauren Faust intended to have Twilight become Celestia's successor all along, she just might not have had it happen so soon.

In any case, unlike human Princesses, Equestrian Princesses are basically all power-wielding bad-asses. Even Cadence, the most frequently complained-about of the three spends a large part of the S3 opener working herself to exhaustion to protect her citizens.

In terms of their actual actions, Friendship is Magic Princesses are less like this:


...and more like this:


That's Princess Mary vs Harrison Ford as The President of the United States.

We all know how that worked out, and the subtle concessions to corporate dictate that culminated with this season 3 finale which, however well handled by the team behind the show, still represented the end of a road - the transition from a show solidly based on values of friendship, to one that seems to be centered around the notion of considering if a tiara looks good on a pretty pony's head. From here forth, there shall be the persisting feeling that no matter how well stories may be written, they are mere accomodations to corporate dictate looking to perpetuate the aforementioned "princess trap", and not the end result of legitimate artistic visions that happen to be capitalized.

I always assumed that Hasbro had been doing that since square one.

Season 1: We'd like to sell a Gala playset.
Season 2: We'd like to sell a Wedding playset.
Season 3: We'd like to sell a Coronation playset.
 

Myke Greywolf

Ambassador of Goodwill
I always assumed that Hasbro had been doing that since square one.

Season 1: We'd like to sell a Gala playset.
Season 2: We'd like to sell a Wedding playset.
Season 3: We'd like to sell a Coronation playset.
That just goes to show how insidiously smooth the transition was.

Season 1: finale has no effect on the status quo whatsoever, each character is written to showcase their aspirations. The whole thing is framed as a lesson on handling expectations, in alignment with the rest of the season. The only difference is scope and stakes.

Season 2: finale introduces two never-before-mentioned, corporate-mandated characters who, nevertheless, remain minor from that point on and don't affect the status quo too much. Regarding the mane 6, there is an emphasis on Twilight. The story plays out a bit like an opera, but friendship is still the focus, particularly its two special cases - brotherly love and romantic love.

Season 3: finale breaks the status quo to accomodate corporate mandate. Twilight Sparkle is Mary-Sue'd and the others are reduced to the parts of victims and onlookers. There is a spotlight on friendship, but it is shadowed by the obsession with the coronation.
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Season 3: finale breaks the status quo to accomodate corporate mandate. Twilight Sparkle is Mary-Sue'd and the others are reduced to the parts of victims and onlookers. There is a spotlight on friendship, but it is shadowed by the obsession with the coronation.

I don't think that's a fair accusation at all until we see season 4. Assuming season 3 was intended to be the finale, I think it's great that we get to see these show runners continue the story, and see where they will take it.
 

PaulloDEC

Member
I don't think that's a fair accusation at all until we see season 4. Assuming season 3 was intended to be the finale, I think it's great that we get to see these show runners continue the story, and see where they will take it.

I'm with the Doc. How successful/destructive/effective/insidious the Princessification of Twilight was won't be clear until we've seen at least some of Season 4. I'm not ready to assume the worst just yet.
 

$200

Banned
I don't think that's a fair accusation at all until we see season 4. Assuming season 3 was intended to be the finale, I think it's great that we get to see these show runners continue the story, and see where they will take it.

I agree with Myke 100% on this. It's not really about how well the writers and animators can handle the tasks but the constant and increasing meddling from Hasbro dumbing down the core of the show that's worrying me.
 

Tenumi

Banned
Something I really don't like is the term Mary Sue. It's been tossed around so much that it really has lost all meaning that it originally carried. People pretty much use it now as a "I don't like this character/the direction they are going, they must be a Mary Sue".

In all honesty, Twilight doesn't even qualify, in my opinion. She was specifically pointed out from Season 1 as having a higher magical ability, and the connection to the Elements of Harmony, specifically the 'hidden' one, enforced that. She isn't a normal unicorn.

Anyway, here's the official Pony of Peace.

 

tafer

Member
I don't think that's a fair accusation at all until we see season 4. Assuming season 3 was intended to be the finale, I think it's great that we get to see these show runners continue the story, and see where they will take it.

I think it is problematic to assume that it was the finale of the show, specially considering the sorry state of well, tons of stuff. (I have expressed my opinions several times on this subject and I'm not feeling like repeating myself)

On the other hand, I do agree that we should wait for S4 to see how they are going to handle the show after the S3 finale, they have a lot to prove.
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
I agree with Myke 100% on this. It's not really about how well the writers and animators can handle the tasks but the constant and increasing meddling from Hasbro dumbing down the core of the show that's worrying me.

We don't know to what degree Hasbro meddled. There's a lot to suggest that much of this was planned from the start. Lauren saying Twilight was going to succeed Celestia. Celestia clearly grooming Twilight for greater things since episode 1. At most there's evidence to suggest Hasbro wanted "Princess Twilight" and not just "Alicorn Twilight", but even that is speculation.

Also how would moving on dumb down the show? How was anything from the finale, or S3 bringing down the show? Should they just have Twilight continue learning about friendship and occasionally reporting to the Princess? Now she has something new to learn, true leadership. It's not like she's going to be sitting on a throne and ruling come season 4. We know that Cadance was fostered with Celestia for years before she was put in charge of the Crystal Empire.

There's plenty of new ground they can cover, and while I would agree season 3 had a bit of a pacing issue for individual episodes (Which can probably be calked up to Meghan having her first crack as show editor), the season was pretty much like the first two as far as story and plots go.

I think it is problematic to assume that it was the finale of the show, specially considering the sorry state of well, tons of stuff. (I have expressed my opinions several times on this subject and I'm not feeling like repeating myself)

On the other hand, I do agree that we should wait for S4 to see how they are going to handle the show after the S3 finale, they have a lot to prove.

Everything points to S3 being the end. Story lines wrapped up in a was as to allow closure, but not totally close the doors. Rainbow Dash joining the Wonderbolts, Apple Jack being prepped to take over as Matriarch of the Apple Clan, Fluttershy gaining confidence and performing a very difficult task without much support from her friends, etc. We'll probably never know for sure if it was intended to be the end (well not till after the show is over and staff can talk more openly).
 

Cheerilee

Member
and the subtle concessions to corporate dictate that culminated with this season 3 finale which, however well handled by the team behind the show, still represented the end of a road - the transition from a show solidly based on values of friendship, to one that seems to be centered around the notion of considering if a tiara looks good on a pretty pony's head.
From what we know of Equestria Girls (thanks to the trailer),
Twilight's crown (apparently a talisman of great power) is going to be stolen, and then she's going to cross over to another world looking for it, and this other world more closely resembles our world (although is still furries), and it has a high school setting. She's going to have some fish-out-of-water hijinks (like eating with her face), and butt heads with Sunset Shimmer. She's going to re-make friends with the Mane Six Doppelgangers, and then they're going to help her compete in a popularity contest (with her stolen crown likely as the prize) by giving her a makeover, since she apparently doesn't understand anything about that world's popular fashion. But it apparently won't end so easily, and will turn into some sort of magic thing.

So... the presence of a makeover is what makes this series doomed?

And season 4 of MLP is doomed too, because downward trend, and will be all about pretty tiaras instead of the magic of friendship, even when the writers are tweeting things (about S4) like "this is the most epic thing we've ever attempted on Pony"?

That just goes to show how insidiously smooth the transition was.

Season 1: finale has no effect on the status quo whatsoever, each character is written to showcase their aspirations. The whole thing is framed as a lesson on handling expectations, in alignment with the rest of the season. The only difference is scope and stakes.

Season 2: finale introduces two never-before-mentioned, corporate-mandated characters who, nevertheless, remain minor from that point on and don't affect the status quo too much. Regarding the mane 6, there is an emphasis on Twilight. The story plays out a bit like an opera, but friendship is still the focus, particularly its two special cases - brotherly love and romantic love.

Season 3: finale breaks the status quo to accomodate corporate mandate. Twilight Sparkle is Mary-Sue'd and the others are reduced to the parts of victims and onlookers. There is a spotlight on friendship, but it is shadowed by the obsession with the coronation.

I think you're really reaching, drawing a downward pattern of doom from interpretations of three points.

Cadence wasn't corporate-mandated. She was partially based on Lauren Faust's babysitting. She was just "enhanced" to try and push more toys.

The season 3 finale broke the status quo because the writers thought the show was ending.

I think it is problematic to assume that it was the finale of the show, specially considering the sorry state of well, tons of stuff. (I have expressed my opinions several times on this subject and I'm not feeling like repeating myself)
Transformers Prime basically killed itself off in the same situation (after 2.5 years, despite a 5-year plan). I believe that Hasbro's half-budget S3 with no commitment for S4 led the MLP writers to believe the show was finished. I think we're lucky the show was able to keep going.
 

$200

Banned
Also how would moving on dumb down the show? How was anything from the finale, or S3 bringing down the show? Should they just have Twilight continue learning about friendship and occasionally reporting to the Princess? Now she has something new to learn, true leadership. It's not like she's going to be sitting on a throne and ruling come season 4. We know that Cadance was fostered with Celestia for years before she was put in charge of the Crystal Empire.

I never said "moving on" dumbs down the show. If I were I would have hated Wonderbolts Academy.

Everyone knows Hasbro has been increasingly trying to force more and more craps on to the show. It's especially obvious when you have themed toys being released way before appearing on TV (train set, wedding set, crystal empire, sunset shimmer) rather than the other way around. There were only 13 episodes in season 3; 4 of them featured Crystal Empire, 5 of them had crystal ponies and that stupid Cadance.
 

tafer

Member
We don't know to what degree Hasbro meddled. There's a lot to suggest that much of this was planned from the start. Lauren saying Twilight was going to succeed Celestia. Celestia clearly grooming Twilight for greater things since episode 1. At most there's evidence to suggest Hasbro wanted "Princess Twilight" and not just "Alicorn Twilight", but even that is speculation.

Also how would moving on dumb down the show? How was anything from the finale, or S3 bringing down the show? Should they just have Twilight continue learning about friendship and occasionally reporting to the Princess? Now she has something new to learn, true leadership. It's not like she's going to be sitting on a throne and ruling come season 4. We know that Cadance was fostered with Celestia for years before she was put in charge of the Crystal Empire.

There's plenty of new ground they can cover, and while I would agree season 3 had a bit of a pacing issue for individual episodes (Which can probably be calked up to Meghan having her first crack as show editor), the season was pretty much like the first two as far as story and plots go.

Everything points to S3 being the end. Story lines wrapped up in a was as to allow closure, but not totally close the doors. Rainbow Dash joining the Wonderbolts, Apple Jack being prepped to take over as Matriarch of the Apple Clan, Fluttershy gaining confidence and performing a very difficult task without much support from her friends, etc. We'll probably never know for sure if it was intended to be the end (well not till after the show is over and staff can talk more openly).

And that's exactly the problem with S3 finale, we have a "hard" end for one, a few "soft" ends for some members of the cast, while the rest didn't even get that.
But once again, S4 could fix the issues people noticed with S3 and make the show shine once again.

Transformers Prime basically killed itself off in the same situation (after 2.5 years, despite a 5-year plan). I believe that Hasbro's half-budget S3 with no commitment for S4 led the MLP writers to believe the show was finished. I think we're lucky the show was able to keep going.

I hope we are lucky, but there is also the chance that Hasbro will do its magic and make us regret wishing for more pone. (Ok, ok, that's the pessimistic me talking)
 
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