MLP G5 Discussion and Speculation Thread

@Cosmas-the-Explorer
March for the special, and then summer for the tv show iirc

@ichiban iceychan 1517
Gee, can’t they just come out with the series sooner. The special will just makes more anxious to see the series! This is cruel!

Not really, but I guess I’ll just have to be patient

@Cosmas-the-Explorer
May for the first special, September for the Netflix series, and December for the Hearth’s Warming Eve special.
Source: https://www.equestriadaily.com/2021/10/italian-entertainment-site-lists-g5-my.html

Nice. So we’ll get more stuff soon.

@hironakamura
yes i want a story were sprouts not racist anymore but still a antagonist or villian but changes maybe in season 1 finale he teams up with an evil unicorn who wants the gems for her own since after seeing what they did to sunny she believes that the gems can give her the magic she was not born with(basically a unicorn who naturally can barely produce magic) i would like to say it had been months since he had be recruited as her right hand commander and he changed a lot both in appearance and maturity he also seemed emotionless and only serious but as soon as sunny manages to get him to realize that hes doing and snaps him out of it the villian has already used the gems and gets turned into a shadow like demon and sprout lets sunny out of captivity and constructs a plan to defeat her and ends up literally sacrificing himself and turns to stone while he trys to fight they still manage to defeat her while her friends are devastated and belive hes gone for good and tell sunny to just let it go and that he wont come back maybe in season two her arc would be trying to break him free and by the season two finale they reserected him the unicorn who turned him to stone(who is both guilty and arrested and trying to reform) apologizes claiming she never meant to do this to him

@hironakamura
That could be good! Just in general, I think they would have a rather humorous dynamic, and would make good rivals.

@Ring Team
Then I have some unfortunate bad news for whoever came up with that poll because I don’t see those three appearing in any way shape or form, it’s just baggage that they refuse to unload but yet keeps dragging them back.

@Ring Team
Maybe if one, they didn’t do the twist, and by addition left Cozy out of the group or punishment and two, don’t connect g5 with the mane 6 then yes we can leave it alone once and for all. Plot holes have been a thing in fandoms. All we want is proper and satisfying closures.

@Pinto Bean
Agreed.

She almost permanently paralyzed Twilight by breaking her spine. Why exactly she should be left out? Her manipulation really transcend 4th wall to influence viewers, too…
Anyway, villain trio most likely will be retconned away in G5, so they never existed.

@Background Pony #CF50
Or just forgotten. Just because something isn’t mentioned doesn’t mean it isn’t canon.

@Background Pony #CF50
You know, even better, the g5 world, while a sequel chronology wise, is not the main universe. Yep, it’s another Equestria many years later. Win win.

@Phoenixflambe
But if you bring back even one of the three villains, eventually more people will ask “why didn’t you bring back the rest of the villains?”

I said this a couple of months ago, but if G5 started to solely depend on G4 references by bringing back characters from MLP:FiM, it would divide the MLP fans into even more factions that don’t see eye to eye, with complaints such as “they should have covered this”, “they should have used that”, “that character wasn’t as good as this other character”, “that never happened in G4”… It would be an incredible mess, to the point where it would be difficult to logically discuss G5 (not to mention some discussions from G4 were already complicated to handle in the first place).

G5 has the potential to be expansive, with enough room to be creative in the future. And it’s not like Friendship is Magic was perfect. It had filler episodes, the last seasons had a weird structure, it had creative decisions that don’t match with the motivations of the characters, it had flanderized characters, etc. G5 can fill that aspect by depending on consistency and continuity. I think the team behind the project understands the concern and wants the G5 to be its own thing.

Hand over the franchise to a new and fresh group of characters.

@Myoozik
To be honest, I don’t take the Equestria Daily polls seriously. I just wanted to use this poll to talk how G5 doesn’t fully need G4 references to be good.

And now that I mention it, I don’t believe in the “give to the fans what they want” argument, because I asked for Chrysalis for four years and they bring her back in the worst possible way in the season 6 finale to the point where I didn’t watch the rest of the show for 3 years.

The “listen to the fans” line is a nonsense phrase, it makes to sense, it has no starting point and no benchmark, it doesn’t matter. What fans want isn’t as important as unshackled creative freedom.

@Ring Team
Hold on.

According to your own logic, couldn’t they bring back certain characters if it works with their creative vision, then just not give a shit if the fans demand that other characters come back?

@DerpyFast
The seasons 6 and 7 already had returns of some previous characters that were unnecessary. Every character in the show (the Flim Flam brothers, Trixie, Sassy Saddles, Daring Do, Maud Pie, Filthy Rich, Diamond Tiara, Nightmare Moon, Thorax, the yaks and finally Iron Will) is back, but when Chrysalis is back, it’s only for a few minutes after waiting for four years in 2016. Plus a complete redesign of the changelings.

Personally, I don’t think the idea of a character being in a show should be good just because “thousands of people asked for it”. By that logic, every single Star Wars film would have Boba Fett. I’m more into new things and new characters. In fact, the only MLP characters I wanted them to come back were Chrysalis and Coco Pommel, but Coco was out of the question and Chrysalis’ presence in seasons 6, 8 and 9 was very underwhelming. For a TV show filled with some unnecessary returns such as Iron Will, Flim Flam brothers and Trixie, I’m amazed that the writers didn’t take the chance to apply the same dedication with a villain that had so much potential until it was too late. I mean, the Flim Flam brothers were fine in season 2, but after coming back with exactly the same premise over and over again in seasons 4, 5 (although that was a couple of seconds), 6 and 8, you already are more than done with it.

After finishing the show last summer, I think the returns of the previous characters were either very underwhelming (like Tirek and everything related to Chrysalis) or very unnecessary (Trixie and the Flim Flam brothers). It’s just wasted potential, especially when the characters have episodes that have the exact same premise as their respective debuts. Flim Flam brothers making money by fooling everyone like in season 2? We got their episodes in seasons 4, 6 and 8. Trixie being an asshole like in Boast Busters and Magic Duel? We got A horse shoe-in and All bottled up. Daring Don’t was loved by many? Let’s repeat the same premise in seasons 7 and 9.

It’s just lazy and repetitive.

So no, I don’t believe in the “give the fans what they want” argument anymore, especially after what they have done with Chrysalis back in 2016.

@Ring Team
You should probably re-read my post.

I don’t think any G4 characters will appear in G5. There’s a very simple reason for this. If they’re ponies, they’re dead. If they’re non ponies, Atomic Cartoons will be tasked in making 3d cg models of these characters from scratch. I don’t even know how the standard G5 characters would look like when they get wet or if they’re running around in rain.

Boulder already had a hard time with clothing. I think Atomic Cartoons will stick mostly to pony characters only as its easier to just recycle the models repeatedly. At least for now.

@DerpyFast
My point is, even if you wanted a character to come back in Friendship is Magic, they will be in an episode that has the same formula of their previous episode, like the episodes I mentioned of Trixie and the Flim Flam brothers.

Even though their returns were asked for many people, most of them were completely random and completely baffling. I mean, who was the person who constantly asked Hasbro for more Flim Flam episodes with the exact same argument?

@Ring Team
I’m genuinely surprised Moondancer never came back.

@Dex Stewart
I also like her, but at the same time I don’t know what type of stories she should need to avoid repetition. As much as I like Amending Fences (one of the best episodes in season 5), I don’t think we need Moondancer to fall in the same trap of fan appeasement with repetitive episodes that we saw in the last 4 seasons.

The closest thing I can think of is an episode where Twilight invites Moondancer to stay in Ponyville for a couple of days and they would hang out. But we’ve seen that in a good fraction of Amending Fences.

@Ring Team
So you’re the calvary and even their cameos in the song for the final episode was unnecessary? Or Quibble Pants despite being the core of his episode?

@Ring Team
The show aims to entertain kids whom they think needed a strong reaction while the comics if still appeasing a group is more focused on narrative. I mean Pinkie being sad that her sister’s leaving for college apparently works better in the comic than as an episode as it would be seen as ‘boring’.

@Ring Team
The thing is, they already missed the gate for not always demanding G4 characters - it was back there at the very start of G5, and they left it open. So whether or not they do bring in any more, it will always be a valid argument that they should, cause they chose to have a connection instead of starting from scratch.

(Of course, if they make compelling enough new characters for G5, that might help allay such demands… good luck with that.)

@Phoenixflambe
I actually loved the last song and the last episode. The Last Problem is much better than the credit some fans gave it. It’s on of the best episodes in season 9.

@Ring Team
I remember there were people wanting Chrysalis and the Changelings to be reformed.

I guess the only reason they reformed the Changelings but not Chrysalis is probably cause they wanted to keep her as a serious villain.