Watched the Equestria Girls movie and found it to be excellent, right up there with he best of FIM. Hadn't really expected that, but I guess it does explain why so much of season three was so lackluster. All the magic was going somewhere else.

child of Lilith wrote:Watched the Equestria Girls movie and found it to be excellent, right up there with he best of FIM. Hadn't really expected that, but I guess it does explain why so much of season three was so lackluster. All the magic was going somewhere else.

That makes the whole situation with the Brony community horrendously ironic and me immeasurably furious.

Considering all the hate and bashing the Bronies did when this trailer came out, it was so bad that some of the staff of the show threatened to LEAVE because all the shit they've been put through.

And NOW, the Brony communty, after all that fucking mess, they have the GALL to say they LIKE it and it's the next best thing?

"Love and Tolerate" my ASS.

xanderkh wrote:"Love and Tolerate" my ASS.

Haha I know right? Spend a little time on ponychan and you'll see how much of a myth love and tolerance int he brony community actually is.

Anyway I'll check this out and some point to see if it lives up tot he hype.

Season 4. Anybody checked it out?

I completely forgot about it (probably because of the weird ending to season 3 and not being sure what to think about the MLP movie--though I haven't seen it).

Curious to hear what the general consensus is, at any rate.

Found this when I was surfing for something completely unrelated, so posting it for the pony fans in case it hasn't shown up yet.

The show lost my interest somewhere in season 2, but I fairly recently put on the movie out of morbid curiosity. I guess it wasn't awful, just kind of generically unmemorable, and they couldn't have created a more shallowly obnoxious villain if they'd tried.

Sailor Star Dust wrote:Season 4. Anybody checked it out?

I completely forgot about it (probably because of the weird ending to season 3 and not being sure what to think about the MLP movie--though I haven't seen it).

Curious to hear what the general consensus is, at any rate.

So far most people seem to be enjoying season 4, I certainly am. I've found it to be much better then the third season.

As a cartoon fanatic I really dug the first two seasons which had some genuinely honest & effective character work done through the use of some very basic archetypes. But they lost me once they started to pander to their large Brony fan base in the third season. Tried to watch some recent episode where one of them became a Vampire Pony. The whole thing - complete with intricate song - felt very phony & out of left field. Very unauthentic. Took one quick Google glance & sure enough Bat Ponies was something the fan base had been going crazy about for over a year.
Meh. The show had it's interesting moment. Now it's seems it's become simply just what it was meant to be when the whole thing started - a merchandise cash cow. Or pony. Or whatever.

Cash mare.

Cashmere?

Sweaters were invented to emasculate pasty white nerds.

I see forever.

Gendo'sPapa wrote:Meh. The show had it's interesting moment. Now it's seems it's become simply just what it was meant to be when the whole thing started - a merchandise cash cow. Or pony. Or whatever.

That would suggest that there will be a line of Flutterbat toys or something from Hasbro, which there won't be. Honestly the fandom has turned every kind of animal into pony characterizations, from dogs to deers, to, as Reichu already pointed out, dinosaurs (in that case specifically from the dromeosaur family), that the whole vampire thing resembling a fan-related thing a year ago might have been coincidental. (At this point it's almost like Rule 34, in that if it exists, there's probably a "pony" version of it in some way. In which case to create a vampire story around a pony is inasmuch pandering bronies as porn is to cinephiles, which means that it isn't.)

Though, I will grant that Season 3 didn't have as much heart to the characters as the previous seasons. That was probably due to the short season in preparation for Equestria Girls. Or it could be because Lauren Faust left the show completely after Season 2 (and even then she wasn't nearly as active as she was in Season 1). And that season literally WAS a cash-grab; not so much for the Twilight Princess, which had a design and a crown that was already done away with in the beginning of Season 4 and therefore rendering any toy "obsolete," but rather due to the humanized "EQ" version of the cast and all that.

Season 4 seems to be more plot oriented... maybe? They leave a lot of open-ended elements at the end of each new episode that I wonder if it isn't building up to something bigger in the end. If that's the case, then I guess having less focus on character heart is to be expected, as MLP wouldn't have been the only show to have obvious trade-offs like that. I'm still waiting for an episode that slows WAY down and explore character dynamics more, rather than just recognizable character gimmicks.

Haven't had a chance to watch season 4 at all, but noticed this on Youtube.

Not sure what to think at all. Because I haven't kept up with the series since the season 3 finale, maybe EG/season 4 is decent, but something about what little I've noticed around the 'net things seem...out of place, for lack of a better word?

I enjoyed several episodes in season 3, but I did prefer seasons 1 and 2 overall.

Sailor Star Dust wrote:Haven't had a chance to watch season 4 at all, but noticed this on Youtube.

Not sure what to think at all. Because I haven't kept up with the series since the season 3 finale, maybe EG/season 4 is decent, but something about what little I've noticed around the 'net things seem...out of place, for lack of a better word?

I enjoyed several episodes in season 3, but I did prefer seasons 1 and 2 overall.

4 has been a lot better then 3 and even 1 overall imo, though still not quite as good as 2 was. The season finale of 4 was probably the second best finale next to royal wedding imo. Also features tirek from the g1 ponys as the villain.

One day I decided to watch an episode of MLP on Netflix to see what all the fuss was about. Ended up watching all three seasons (four hadn't aired at the time) over the course of two weeks. I enjoyed it so much more than I expected to. I immediately liked the fact that the characters didn't fall into any of the stereotypes you'd expect from a show, produced by a toy company, aimed at young girls. They didn't do any boring shit and whine and cry and wait for some dude to come save them. It's a fun, lighthearted show whose cast just happens to be mostly female ponies. Shame the fandom has kind of made it notorious and might make some people avoid it.

I was kind of thrown off by the brony fandom at first, but I'm not going to let these outside factors get in the way of me watching a show that I enjoy. I'm not a brony, but I can still like the show, right? It just seems to me that being a brony means you're obsessed with the show and the ponies to some extent, simply liking the show isn't enough to qualify.

Also, my favorite ponies are Rarity, Fluttershy and Applejack. Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash are okay, don't care much for Twilight. I do like the chemistry they have between one another as a group.

StarShaper7 wrote:I'm not a brony, but I can still like the show, right?

You have tasted the forbidden pony fruit, thus you are now a brony. Jk

I liked the first 2 seasons as well and some episodes from season 3 and 4, but I guess I started losing interest around the time the movie came out. Favorite pony - Rainbow Dash.

I still don't understand this show.(the popularity or it's fans) Why do you all find it so entertaining?
I'm generally interested in what you're answers are.

Because of this

Just kidding the shows nothing like that. Honestly I just started seeing a lot of memes popping up everywhere about the show. Watched a couple of episodes and liked it. I liked the characters the stories and even the songs. I think the season 3 finale is where i stopped caring so much about the show. I still had it set to dvr but I wasn't excited to watch it like I used to be. Sometimes even forgetting I had it recorded and having to marathon 3-4 episodes at a time. Although I didn't like most of this last season the finale was still pretty good/interesting.

I ignored the reputation of the show itself and its fan base, like I usually do, so that I could judge it for myself. I found it to be a fun show that just happened to be marketed toward girls while having the makings of a show with mass appeal.

I don't really have a solid understanding of the obsession with the ponies myself. I think hardcore bronies see some sort of appeal in anthropomorphic cartoon equine entities. It isn't about having an equal relationship with the pony, it's the idea of owning a pony that can also be your (girl)friend. That's what I think about the more extreme fans, not all of them. They're girls, but they aren't girls and they're so friendly. It's the same appeal that anime females have to the otaku. They're women, just not real women, they're fetishistic exaggerations.

I think the creator of FiM, Lauren Faust, wanted it to be cute while also not adhering to the hilariously masculine view of femininity found in TV shows for girls. It's kind of like the Powerpuff Girls, but for even younger kids and with the more masculine elements either toned down or removed. As usual, some fans just fetishize it and gain notoriety, which I think is kind of harmful to the show's potential viewers and people who already watch it, like myself.

As for the show itself, it hasn't been consistent since the end of season 2, but there are some episodes in seasons 3 and 4 that I like. I think the third one was the worst season so far. The movie was just bad. MLP doesn't really work for me when it's doing one of those grand adventure story lines, which they usually do for season premieres or finales.

Lauren Faust left the program after season 2, explaining a lot of the sort of 'swinging into the wind' the series has developed. No one has quite stepped up to the plate.

For me (as a self-identified...I guess 'brony lite?'), I just had to see what the big deal was about the show - and I was already a Lauren Faust fan. So I sat down, watched it a bit, and found something about it that just appealed to a weird part of my brain. The characters were unique and intelligent, the voice acting was topnotch, the writing was surprisingly clever for a kids show. It falls into that category of cartoon that assumes its viewers are smart enough to get the joke.


Then I saw this:



Yes...that is the Dude, Donnie, and Walter in My Little Pony. And that is why I will continue to admit my brony-leanings without shame.

That little cameo was awesome.

You're either full brony or not a brony at all.

Nah, but I've always assumed that to be a brony you'd have to be interested in FiM merchandise, fanfiction, participate in online communities dedicated to it, all that stuff that many people on EvaGeeks do for Evangelion.

I love the show, and often leave it on in the background while I'm working (something about the way the voices calms my brain, for some reason). I have exactly...three items from the show, two of which were purchased for me by my wife because she thinks it's adorable (and the one item I got was a t-shirt that has Batman as the 'Darkest Brony.' How can you not get a shirt like that?). The whole 'culture' aspect of it is something that I never really fell into...but I still identify with it simply because it needs decent people to stand with it.

Bronies do get a bizarre amount of hate, and while there are those creepy bronies (I have met them, and I dub them...creepy), there are all kinds across the fandom. And the ones that tend to really suffer the hurt the most? The ones on deep ends of the autistic spectrum, among others. Like, the last big brony convention (and it was huge, from what I hear)? They had color coded badges to define a person's comfort level with crowds, due to the higher-than-average influx of attendees who suffered from basic introversion to more serious and ingrained forms of social and emotional anxieties.

I mean, this is a show that has ended up touching a lot of people in very profound ways. I don't think it's really had that kind of an impact on me, but I find it a fundamentally important show in the way it portrays female characters, and I'm going to get DVDs for my as-of-yet unborn daughters because of that. Either way, I think the general fandom deserves to get every ounce of support it can get.

I don't hate Bronies. I fail to understand them, but I don't hate them. Much like Sailor Moon, MLP is one of those things everyone around me seems to like/love. But I personally just couldn't bring myself to care for.