@Wolfcho
I’m not sure I’d go that far. It feels more like not really well thought through. Like the writer(s) were at the point in their list where the villain gets comeuppance, but they forgot they themselves wrote said villain to be a total momma’s boy who’s only taking what she taught him and running with it, or that the core message of the movie was to come together in peace, live and let live, and let bygones be bygones. Somepony caught that, fortunately, before it could be rolled out and we have an ending more viewers found acceptable.

@Background Pony #7E0C
This horrible, and thankfully scrapped, ending feels like a bad AU fanfic by a Sprout-hater. Does anyone beside Sprout look like they’re in character here? How is this consistent with the rest of the movie? And magic users using magic on non-magic users AGAINST THEIR WILL is so disgusting. And this from Izzy of all unicorns. This is the FIRST thing unicorns do after getting magic, using it on Earth ponies. Oh, and check out Phyllis scapegoating her own son to avoid any responsibility whatsoever.

I got into g5 this Summer. I really liked the movie, but I can say with certainty that if this scene was left in, it would’ve really left a sour taste in my mouth. Izzy is one of my favorite ponies, but if I saw her doing that to Sprout I’d think she was revolting. It even directly goes against what filly Sunny said at the start of the movie.

“It’s like in the olden times when all three ponykinds were friends…and they NEVER used their magic against each other!”

I cannot see Sunny ever supporting someone using magic like that.

@Harmonio
Yeah. I get it. A scene where they were all working together to clean up the goo or the rubble from the lighthouse would be nice. Even if they just showed Sprout in the background sweeping beside other ponies would be nice. But we got the “flying dog” scene instead.

@hironakamura
@Wolfcho
I never said Sprout should be held responsible for the actions of Maretime Bay as a whole, or that he should be singled out as a scapegoat. I’ve only said that Sprout should be sentenced to community service for probably a day or so to help clean up the mess from his Sprouticus Maximus and the mob he led. All it would take to show that is a scene of Sprout doing his part to clean up Maretime Bay, even if he’d likely be grumpy about having to do it. He was depicted as a lazy coward who tries to weasel out of responsibility, and we even see unicorns who didn’t have anything to do with it setting the trolley back on its tracks just to be helpful.
Sprout giving a panicked apology while being held up by an angry mob is absolutely incongruent with the message of unity, but him having to help clean up the mess he was a notable part of isn’t.

@Harmonio
By punishing Sprout and nobody else, regardless of how light the punishment may be, the movie’s message falls apart and leaves nasty, unfortunate implications.

Sprout is not written in a such way that endings where he gets punished are satisfying, especially when he’s the only one punished.

Isn’t the message suppose to be “There is no us vs. them, there’s only we.”? According to this scrapped, poorly thought up mess of an ending, it’s everypony vs Sprout, he’s not included.

@Harmonio
My point was the movie’s message though. Like I said before, you put this ending in there and no one would take the message seriously.

What about the pegasus family? How come no one’s saying they should be punished? Or everyone that stole crystals? How come no one’s asking to punish those? What about Hitch abandoning his post and leaving the town in Sprout’s charge? Why isn’t he charged with negligence?

Is it because they’re the “good guys?” Is it because the ends justify the means? If its the later, how come no one is thanking Sprout for creating a crisis that allowed the 3 tribes to unify and bring magic back?

I posted it once. If anyone got punished in the movie, the message would be as fake as a feminist trying to defend a rapist because the rapist was a person of color.

@hironakamura
This is a new generation, which means a new continuity. Not to mention giving other examples of characters not having to face justice isn’t exactly a strong argument.
A good sheriff is supposed to keep everyone calm, maintain the peace, and be a pillar of strength for the community; Sprout did the exact opposite of that while Hitch was away, and even failed to meet his lowered expectations of “just try not to start a war while I’m gone”. That alone is enough grounds to remove him from the station of deputy (which he really isn’t cut out for anyway). I’m well aware Sprout was just an incompetent idiot who took things too far and wasn’t actively malicious, but he did still incite panic, cause property damage across Maretime Bay, and put other ponies in danger, and he went farther than any other citizen of Maretime Bay to the point of refusing to accept surrender. A crime committed out of ignorance is still a crime, though it typically warrants a much lighter sentence than a crime committed with intent - hence the reason I mentioned community service rather than imprisonment.

I don’t know if you realize, but this part could be construed as a mischaracterizing generalization. I personally prefer to give the benefit of the doubt though, so I don’t take it as a slight.
I actually rather liked how the true antagonist wasn’t any particular character, but the societal influence of fear and mistrust. The disunity from those was truly the cause of everything, and no individual is to blame for that.

@Harmonio
Do ponies even have wrists?

@Harmonio
Well characters hardly ever get punished for doing dumb things. When Twilight enchanted a doll that mind controlled ponies, she was never punished. Her intentions were not innocent either. It was to start a problem for her own benefit.

The worst offenders I could remember were Spike and Rarity. Spike turned into a giant dragon almost destroying Ponyville because he fed his own greed. Rarity was using dark magic to crystalize Ponyville and if left unchecked she would have been a danger to Equestria. The reason I think its worse is they got away with it on top of no pony outing them. Most of Ponyville never even knew they were responsible.

The most that Sprout did was fling goop at ponies and smashed a lighthouse because he was trying to protect his home as demanded of him by the town. You can’t chalk things up to malice when it can be easily chalked up to stupidity.

The people who want Sprout punished are people who think problems get solved by blaming it on others (minorities, other gender, political tribe, different religion) then using that other as fall guys or scapegoats instead of actually figuring out what’s causing the problem in the first place. This is the real reason this ending would never work in a movie preaching unity.

Sprout should’ve gotten a slap on the wrist for what he did, but getting mobbed into an apology is kind of double-edged as others have pointed out.
A better slap on the wrist would be Hitch revoking Sprout’s position as deputy and sentencing him to community service, with a scene of him having to pick up a smoothie cup littered by the pony he stole a smoothie from during “Gonna Be My Day”.

@ichiban iceychan 1517
Why? What type of person are you? Do you think things through? All things considered it’s not a good thing to want this to have been the ending. It’s a horribly written mess that would have taken the whole movie down with it. The movie that this would be a fitting ending to cannot be a good one.

Sprout is not the jerk here, everypony else is. What the hell is their problem? They got magic, what the hell do they care what Sprout does? If he wants to leave, then let him be.

@Wolfcho
but i do prefer this ending

don’t tell me what i should and shouldn’t want

@ichiban iceychan 1517
That’s a TERRIBLE ending. It would have ruined the movie. You should not want poorly thought up junk like this.

~~I actually prefer this ending tbh ~~

@Wayneponeth
If I had to do some changes to the ending, instead of Phyllis distracting Sprout so she can walk away, she would put her hoof on Sprout and say something like “Son, we need to have a talk.” cuz those two really need to communicate.

With the tone of this movie, this ending is honestly far too cynical for it. The jokey way of Sprout’s ending is actually better in this regard, even if it makes Phyllis look like avoiding responsibility. This ending makes her look even worse than that though.

@Phoenixflambe
Being ambiguous is better than being terrible. It IS a better ending because no character got ruined. Izzy wanting revenge on Sprout and Phyllis being the hypocrite of the century does not match the rest of the movie.

@Starswirl
That’s what I’ve been saying.

And magic users using magic on a non-magic user, disgusting. Doing it against their will, double disgusting. Unicorns just got their magic and THIS is the first thing they do with it? JERKS!

If this ending happened, I suspect Sprout is gonna be traumatized and hate unicorns even more than he already did.

How in the world does anyone think this is a better ending? Because Sprout got some comeuppance, is that it? Ruining a movie by having a terrible ending is not worth it just for that. Sickos.

To me the other ending isn’t better but it does have ambiguity.

So much for a message of unity. Sunny was preaching unicorns and pegasus can be our friends and then they turn on their own because he made a mistake. No one’s gonna take their message seriously. Someone else said it better than me. “It would be like a feminist defending a rapist because the rapist was a person of color” kind of hypocrisy.

While I do get making Sprout apologize, hanging him upside down gives actual credence to his fears that led him to making the EU robot and getting his mom to make him apologize for that makes her look like a hypocrite considering that she gave him that power and she specifically raised him, and sort of the entire town to be xenophobic.

I’m glad this got scrapped. The karma/consequence aspect would have been vastly overshadowed by its flaws.

I think, if they went with this, there’d be more upset viewers, because this makes Phyllis Cloverleaf into a gargantuan hypocrite on top of being a bad parent.