Unpopular opinion time

@LeoNero  
Well, it was a different team that handled the show back them.

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Unpopular opinion: most of the fans want a sexual relationship with a pony

@Background Pony #E501  
Thats not an opinion, thats a fact you numbnuts.

@Gameplay The Pony  
Wrong thread.

@Background Pony #E501  
Same way how a lot of anime fans want a sexual relationship with a weirdly draw character with large eyes.

@LeoNero  
@[Ω]  
makes me wonder how much of that is because of different teams at the helm, how much of that is them not really knowing what they want the show to be, and how much of that is them not being able to do what they want because of hasbro mandating plots and toys to sell. for better or for worse they seem like they’ve never really had a direction they want to take the show in; even the base morality of the setting and its characters seems to change at random.

@DanielTepesKraus  
Iirc, most of the ideas they had post S5 was mostly on the writers, and Hasbro didn’t have much of a say, apart from rejecting some….really terrible ideas||(Starlight and her friends replacing the Mane 6, having Celestia, Luna and Discord “die” in the end of the show)||. Heck, even the School of Friendship wasn’t entirely Hasbro’s idea like they say Writers wanted to introduce it as early as S6 according to the leak. Honestly, reading about what Hasbro said no to, and what they ended up making instead, instead of making something different and new, if really just comes off as lazy and half-assing everything they planned, when they didn’t get what they wanted

@Kiryu-Chan  
there’s been plenty of times where hasbro has made them do certain plots too though. twilight’s world-ending school of academic mediocrity and castle product placement, and i would imagine some of the more spontaneous stock morals that don’t seem to mesh with the rest of the show like teaching that it’s wrong to defend or stand up for yourself in a series where characters defend and stand up for themselves all the time or having the changelings change into a new race to be seen as ‘good’ in a series that has otherwise strongly enforced an “it doesn’t matter what you are but who you are” message are probably the result of hasbro too.
 
in their defense too, i really don’t think there’s ever been a time they’ve truly half-assed something. even at the show’s absolute worst, the big three of objective bad writing in fame and misfortune, princess spike, and suelight’s “reformation”, i would say that was the best they could do either ability-wise or given the circumstances. we know they were forced to write f&m that badly (larson even shared his idea for the script, which was worlds better, that they rejected. his exact words were “they said ‘no, we’re doing the one where they’re assholes’”) and that they had to end every season conclusively (which likely fucked up suelight’s reformation quite a bit as that would be a big reason she got forgiven so easily and got off with a reward instead of consequences).
 
it makes me really curious to see what they would come up with if they were given complete free reign. for what i’ve seen of season nine so far (haven’t seen all yet) it seems like they’re doing a lot more of what they want to do, like having twilight and friends outright kill a foe on-screen. the only other time they did that was too many pinkie pies, and that time they hid behind the whole oh they’re not real ponies so it doesn’t count good-races-evil-races rpg logic.

@DanielTepesKraus  
It’s rather easu to blame everithing one doesn’t like on “corporate interference” and assume all the creator’s ideas were good, but don’t forget it’s only thanks to Hasbro that AJ hits trees with her legs rather than her head.

@Latecomer  
To be fair wanted to teach kids about concussions isn’t a bad thing, especially back in 2010 where people were still in denial about it  
It just would have been too awkward

@Kiryu-Chan
 
It’s freaking ridiculous that they were even considering ditching the mane six for The Starlight Show. Freaking ridiculous.

@Broken Adam  
I’m pretty sure medical education wasn’t the goal - just comedy.
 
 
@Spinny  
Someone obviously agreed, given it didn’t happen.

@Spinny
 
Amen. Passing the torch to the superior newcomer should’ve gone without question.

@Kiryu-Chan
 
@DanielTepesKraus
 
@Spinny  
Let’s be honest, the whole idea of “Starlight replacing the Mane 6” thing would’ve worked better as a spinoff rather than it being implemented on the show itself. As much as I love Glim Glam as much as the next guy, but her overtaking the main cast would’ve just been a liiiiiiiiiiiitle bit too much.

@Myoozik  
Yeah, replacing an entire cast people love is never gonna go over well, it’s best just to make your own show or spinoff

@Latecomer  
i’m not saying their ideas are always good. i’ve even gone on record saying lauren faust (who created that boner of a brain-damage idea) needed someone to separate her good ideas from her bad ones. i’m saying their ideas aren’t bad for lack of trying, that they don’t just phone in ideas or half-ass it, and that for good or bad they’re at least trying to turn out something good.
 
@Spinny  
@Myoozik  
@Kiryu-Chan  
big problem i think is starlight’s really not an interesting enough character to take the helm of a show. she doesn’t have an interesting story arc, she’s had no real character development, there’s nothing really funny or endearing about her, she just sort of goes through the motions, reacting to things, causing conflicts, or both, and it never really matters what she does because she and everyone around her just does exactly what the episode needs them to do to wrap things up whether it’s in-character or not. i think it’s why they ultimately exiled her into standalone episodes that just involve her and maybe trixie having their own little detached side-adventures: she never developed a meaningful relationship with anyone else and now they’re just kind of stuck with her in a show she really doesn’t fit into.

@DanielTepesKraus  
Meh, I beg to differ so I’m still holding on to the thought that a spinoff could’ve been possible. What I imagine is that it would involve her, Trixie, Sunburst, Maud and MudBriar as the main cast.

@Myoozik  
even with the people you listed off though, she doesn’t really have a relationship with maud or mudbriar, sunburst doesn’t seem to like her all that much and actually seems totally content with not having her around, and even trixie, the one person who actually seems to like starlight on a personal level, seems like she’d be better off without starlight in her life. i think you’d have to really play up the fact that she’s such a parasitic friend and derive humor from how people would be better off without her around to make it work, like you’d have to make her like eric cartman or rick sanchez to make a show where she was the star work. that would totally work actually, but i can’t see mlp doing a more mean-spirited kind of dark humor like that (unless they’re doing it to spike).

@Spinny
 
I wouldn’t have minded a spin-off about Starlight tbh. Do what Buffy and Angel did and have occasional crossovers between the two shows, while still keeping them mostly separate.

@DanielTepesKraus  
Oh, I agree. And Hasbro is too - they want the show to sell their stuff, and it won’t if it’s no good. Everybody involved in FIM wanted it to succeed - they just didn’t necessarily agree how.
 
(Now that said, a few things were totally half-assed - for a pretty unambiguous example, Flash Sentry.)
 
And like the CMC, Starlight and her crew probably couldn’t support a full spinoff - a few episodes a season kept them reasonable fresh.

@DanielTepesKraus  
That’s fair I guess. I just see her differently than you and I liked her development more than her redemption so they would carry that onto the spinoff show.
 
@Jarkes  
Nice, I support this.

@DanielTepesKraus  
I have to ask, in what possible way would Trixie be better off without her? Starlight has been one of the few people that can tolerate Trixie’s selfish, self centered attitude. The vast majority of others would have ditched Trixie after a week. Hell, the first time Trixie really finds a way to contribute to society is through the school, which only happens because of Starlight.

@Kiryu-Chan  
And people say the staff didn’t play favorites with Starlight my ass.

@Latecomer  
i kind of think they really didn’t know what they wanted their characters to be. there’s a lot of times where characters do what the plot needs them to do, rather than what you’d expect that character to do. it’s a double-edged sword: it allows them a lot more freedom to do what they want, but it also robs the show of a lot of potential emotional impacts.
 
for example, when you watch justice league (the animated one, just because i’ve been watching it as of late) and batman’s character as someone who will never use a gun or kill is well-established. so when deadman possesses him and makes him fatally shoot a villain, it’s a huge holy-fuck moment. he doesn’t say a line but you feel how big a deal it is to him. if batman casually used guns it wouldn’t have mattered.
 
mlp doesn’t really do that. take reformations. if twilight was well-established as someone who wasn’t very forgiving and held grudges, it would have been a huge emotional moment when she forgave starlight. conversely, if it was well-established that she was very forgiving and didn’t hold grudges, it would be a huge emotional moment when she didn’t forgive cozy glow. but because she will or won’t forgive people based entirely on what the script needs, there’s no real impact on either. it’s why them not forgiving cozy felt more like a meta “let’s not forgive a villain for once” thing than anything else.
 
that all said, i do have to agree with you on flash. whether or not flash was muscled in at the demand of the higher-ups (which i could see happening, a barbie show has to have a ken), they really didn’t seem to try very hard with him. they actually put more effort into spiting him later, which makes me think they were never too fond of him.
 
@Myoozik  
i do think that starlight could have been a brilliant character. if they acknowledged her flaws and bad behavior in a substantial way, having characters react more appropriately to the bad shit she does and played her up as a kind of parasitic bad friend, she could have been outright hilarious.
 
@RaineV1  
it’s because starlight is a very parasitic friend. she constantly makes trixie’s life harder and encourages bad behavior i find. i feel like between starlight being a bad person in her own right and bringing out worse behavior in trixie, she’d be a better and happier person without her. it’s true that trixie’s gotten more opportunities from that friendship, but that in and of itself is a pretty shallow reason to maintain a friendship: “he hits me but he pays the bills” isn’t a very healthy relationship, after all.