G5: What Went Wrong and Why · 6:09pm Dec 6th, 2024
I know I said originally I was going to do this list before the end of November, but things got away from me and I needed time to gather my thoughts. G5 of MLP has come and gone, though it does seem like the IDW comics at least are going to try to keep the franchise afloat (in between alternating with it and FiM). And unfortunately, while G5 does still have dedicated fans trying to keep it afloat, this site alone indicates that more people are interested in continuing with FiM or even revising it, rather than acknowledging anything G5 did. Maybe G5 was doomed to failure no matter what, because it had to follow in the heels of FiM's unexpected popularity, and anything that came after it was going to seem lesser by comparison. It's not to say that G5 didn't try, because it clearly did (to what extent is debatable). But just how and why exactly did G5, with all its potential and initial excitement, turn into a hot mess that continues the MLP brand's cursed reputation when it comes to animated cartoons?
Well, I'm here to officially present a list of ten things that I believe all played a role in G5's failures. I'm listing them in order from what was the least problematic in my opinion to what I feel bares the most responsibility for how things turned out. Of course, this is just my personal opinion, it's possible there are things that I didn't consider that others have, or things that I had a problem with that others might not take issue with. So please respect my opinion, and feel free to offer up your own sentiments about them as well as anything you think might also explain G5 turning into a flop.
10. Expanding Too Far Too Soon
Think about what FiM had in its first three seasons: It took until midway through the show's second season for it to get a DVD release, and until the show's third season for it to get an official licensed comics line. Equestria Girls was originally meant to be a one-off grand finale for all of FiM, and only became a spin-off series in the loosest sense of the word once FiM was already beginning to wind down. The big theatrical movie came out a few months later, but it had been in production since at least the end of Season 5 and serves as a cautionary example of why movies based on t.v. shows usually don't come out whilst said shows are still ongoing (because they draw away talent that would otherwise be available to work on the show). And throughout its entire lifespan, it never got any officially licensed video games (aside from a couple of flash games and a mobile app). Contrast all of that to G5, which after "A New Generation" had two different shows: A 3D CGI Netflix series, and a 2D YouTube Kids shorts series, both of which were allowed to air alongside each other (and the latter of which ended up being imported to Netflix anyway). It wouldn't be so bad if not for the fact that both shows were clearly slice of life based, and often times seemed to be stepping on each others' toes. In addition, within the first year of G5's existence after "A New Generation", there was a shovelware video game released for all major video game consoles, and it got a shovelware sequel a year later. And of course there were the IDW comics that were up and running. All of that resulted in a problem in that G5 sort of turned into the MCU, where in order to fully understand something, you had to consume multiple forms of media across multiple platforms. Especially in this day and age where money is tight, that's time and money a lot of people (especially kids) don't have.
9. Changing the Distribution Strategy
This one might have initially been excusable. The Covid-19 pandemic threw everything out of whack. No one knew how long it would last or whether movie theaters would be allowed to reopen. So it made sense to shunt "A New Generation" to Netflix and then push back its release date by a year, since the pandemic likely also meant it was harder for all the writers, voice actors, and animators to get together and collaborate. So with the increased costs due to social distancing, it may have made sense to work out an agreement with Netflix and even have them cover the costs. The downside to that is that Netflix esentially took full ownership of the film, meaning even if it was successful Hasbro would at best be splitting the profits with Netflix (though on the flip side, if it failed they would be covered). And it's possible that Netflix insisted on tight deadlines that wouldn't have been place if Hasbro had tried to get a t.v. network to pick up "Make Your Mark" or "Tell Your Tale". But "Tell Your Tale" not only being greenlit while "Make Your Mark" was still in development, but also coming out on YouTube Kids in early 2022 was a problem. Unlike Netflix, YouTube Kids doesn't require a paid membership in order for you to watch it, and with it only lasting for five minutes it was easy to crank out episodes every week or every other week. It would be fine if it was just a stopgap measure to buy more time for "Make Your Mark" to come out, but when it kept on going even after "Make Your Mark" was up and running, it was clear that Hasbro was doing so solely because they viewed the latter as more profitable. And then they ended up shunting some of "Tell Your Tale" to Netflix anyway (though new episodes never came out on the platform, they would always come out on YouTube Kids). If Hasbro was regretting letting Netflix take control of G5, they never showed any signs of trying to shop around for a new home for "Make Your Mark". In fact, they just let the Netflix license for other shows and for FiM's Seasons 5-8 expire (they also let Season 9 be taken off of Hulu). Only once "Make Your Mark" was cancelled did Hasbro basically abandon Netflix, and by that point they were already writing off G5 and abruptly pulling the plug on "Tell Your Tale", so they clearly had no faith in their YouTube Kids strategy to work out either.
8. Budget Cuts
Why was the CGI For "Make Your Mark" so much lower in quality in the early chapters compared to the CGI of "A New Generation"? Why did they switch from a proven VA talent pool recruited in LA for "A New Generation" to a mostly unproven pool of VAs in apparently Toronto for all subsequent media? Why was "Tell Your Tale" so low quality in its 2D animation compared to even "Pony Life" which came before it? The obvious answer is money. More specifically, Hasbro opted to slash the budget for G5 in an attempt to save money. And it was cheaper to use talent from Tornoto because it's not unionized the way LA and Vancouver talents are (some LA voices likely would've had to be replaced anyway due to scheduling conflicts). The problem is, this cost cutting measure really showed, especially when it came to "Make Your Mark". Ever notice the absolute lack of background characters doing interesting things throughout the show's life? Or what about Opaline Arcana appearing in the dark in Chapter 1 of "Make Your Mark", only to be seen in full light from Chapter 2 onward? Well get this, the budget cuts were not accompanied by the introduction of lower quality CGI models, so Boulder Media (which worked on "Make Your Mark") was given only the higher quality CGI models from "A New Generation", and with their reduced budget these higher quality models kept causing the limited software they had to crash. So they had to reinvent the models completely from scratch. This is why Jazz Hooves doesn't have ears: Her character model originally had them hidden behind her thick hairstyle, so they took them out, and didn't have time to go back and add them in after Jazz's mane style was scaled back. The first chapter of "Make Your Mark" literally wasn't finished, that's why everything looked so stilted and why Opaline had to be shown in darkness, they hadn't even been able to finish her character model. "Tell Your Tale", meanwhile, was greenlighted by recycling assets from when Boulder Media had originally assumed they were going to do a 2D animated series based on "A New Generation". And it never really progressed beyond that. To be fair, FiM's first season had its fair share of low quality animation moments with flash, but even within the first season they could show us some clever visuals as the animators learned their trade, not to mention the fact that we still got lots of memorable background events (heck, Derpy owes her existence to an animation error). CGI is a lot more expensive and time consuming, which is why CGI shows are still so expensive to produce.
7. Not Having a Plan
So they decided fairly early on to make G5 a continuation/follow-up to G4. And after their original plans involved throwing the mane six into a brand new world were scrapped, they decided to settle for making G5 a sequel series that was to take place long after the events of FiM. Okay, that's fine. It made sense to try to build on the success of FiM. And setting it in the future meant they could leave a gap between FiM's ending and "A New Generation"'s start. But that's as far as they got. At no point during development of it or "Make Your Mark" was there even a thought given as to how FiM's happy ending could lead to G5 and to ponies being divided. They never even had a concept or an idea, they were completely winging it and hoped no one would notice. "Make Your Mark" and the IDW comics did eventually settle on a plan, and unfortunately in doing so they ended up basically pulling a Star Wars sequel in that they nullified everything the heroes of old did just so a new generation of heroes could save everything all over again. They also apparently were prevented from using anything from FiM's fifth season onward due to legal issues with Discovery Family, but that should've been further incentive to abandon the follow-up plans, because why make a sequel to something you have only half of the rights to? That's like trying to make a Star Wars sequel without being able to use lightsabers, the force, Jedi or Sith, the Millineum Falcon, or even the iconic scrolling text opening. They might as well have pulled a "Somehow, Palpetine survived."
6. Shrinking the World
"A New Generation" introduced us to Maretime Bay, Zephyr Heights, and Bridlewood. And what did we visit throughout "Make Your Mark" and "Tell Your Tale"? Mostly Maretime Bay, occasionally Zephyr Heights, and only once in a great while Bridlewood. Even then, Maretime Bay was almost entirely confined to the Crystal Brighthouse and/or Mane Melody, with only an occasional visit to Hitch's office. That's it, really. They made a big deal about Canterlogic being abandoned and forgotten, and converting it into a movie studio in Chapter 4 of "Make Your Mark", but then they never did anything with it after "Sunny Side Up" and "Tell Your Tale" never used it either. It shouldn't have taken until Chapter 6 for us to get to the Isle of Scaly, or Chapter 5 for us to briefly visit the Breezie night market. And Starlight Ridge, as interesting as it might have seemed, was a place our heroes were not coming back to, so in the grand scheme of things what was so special about it? It feels like it was meant to be the Crystal Empire originally, but then I guess because of the restrictions they decided not to use it (even though the Crystal Empire was first introduced in Season 3, which should've made it fair game). We did also have Opaline's castle, but even then we only ever seemed to see one or two rooms in it for so long. The budget problems might partially explain it, they didn't want to create entirely new assets for new locations all the time. But after a while, it gets boring seeing the same old thing with nothing ever changing. Again, FiM, in just its first season, had journeys into the Everfree Forest, and trips to Cloudsdale and Appleloosa, as well as Applejack mentioning in a flashback that she went to Manehattan. Limited budget or not, there's zero reason they couldn't at least try to add a few more locations within Maretime Bay, or at least explored Zephyr Heights and Bridlewood more in depth.
5. Unnecessary Additions
They can't say they were all for the sake of the toyline, because G5 apparently didn't even get a toyline after all of that. At least, not while any of its shows were up and running. So in the grand scheme of things, what was the point of introducing Rocky Riff and Jazz Hooves alongside Mane Melody if they were never going to get any sort of introduction or be at all productive or contribute to the narrative? What was the point of introducing the Marestream in "Winter Wishday" if our heroes could go on to just teleport to anywhere they wanted to go when the plot needed it most? Sparky I at least sort of get, we'll talk about him later. But even so, did they have to make this "Chosen One" that was more important than any other dragon, even Spike? Did they have to make him be the one to defeat Opaline instead of Sunny, Spike, Misty, or even some reincarnated/resurrected form of Twilight? We do know that "Secrets of Starlight" was meant to be the pilot for a second season of "Make Your Mark", so that's excusable for the most part. But why did "Tell Your Tale" go on to introduce a new room in the Crystal Brighthouse when they never did anything with it? Heck, what was the point of having the Crystal Brighthouse in the first place instead of just having Sunny's lighthouse be rebuilt? It's not like our heroes ever bothered to check on the unity crystals aside from one or two occasions. And why bother having Argyle be mentioned if you were just going to replace him in-universe with Grandma Figgy, only to do nothing of substance with her after her debut in "Winter Wishday"?
4. Breaking the Rules
The thing about G5 is that it's supposed to be in the same universe as G4, it's supposed to still be Equestria even now that ponies are divided and learning to get along with each other again. Yes, it's supposedly about a hundred years or so after the reign of Twilight Sparkle, and like I said in my re-review of "A New Generation" the idea that Equestria might fade or be broken up over time isn't a bad idea. Time makes all things possible. Even the biggest of empires in history never lasted forever. But when they set it in the same universe as FiM, that meant they had to abide by the rules that FiM established. Among those rules was that the sun and the moon had to be controlled with magic (to the point where Season 9 had to invent something that would allow the sun and moon to be controlled without Celestia and Luna around), cutie marks appeared on both sides of a pony's flanks instead of just one side, cutie marks were said to be discovered when you found your special talent or life's purpose, only Spike was shown to have some unique dragon fire magic, Nightmare Night never called its candy gathering trick or treating, and cutie marks only glowed or sparkled as a result of the map in Twilight's castle. For "Make Your Mark" and "Tell Your Tale" to ignore all of that, to make cutie marks only appear on one side, to have the sun and the moon apparently move by themselves, to have cutie marks be bestowed as a result of personality (in Sunny and Misty's cases, and arguably in Hitch's case), and to have cutie marks glow when ponies were being really passionate about what they were doing, all of that makes me think that they would've been better off setting it entirely in its own universe. Why piggyback on G4's legacy if you were going to just disregard the rules of it? The dragons having their own unique magic is also questionable, but it's possible that Spike taught them that, or even that the spell Twilight used to create the fire stone bestowed magical properties on the dragons. Plus, it was never said for sure that other dragons couldn't be taught to have magic the way Spike did. Still, it's something that in the grand scheme of things meant nothing.
3. Uninspiring/Uninteresting Villains
FiM could have its fair share of stinker villains (a lot of the post Starlight additions fell flat for one reason or another, and even ones that didn't had their fair share of controversy), but even Nightmare Moon for as generic as she was in her debut at least had an interesting concept behind her: A corrupted form of somepony related to Celestia, a ruler who fell from the light and had to be sealed away. And they did try to explore the implications of that and whether Nightmare Moon was a part of Luna or if she was a separate entity. There's a reason why even reformed villains like Discord, Trixie, and Starlight stuck around, they were memorable and for the most part were written well in their debuts or during the time they were villains. Contrast all of that to the villains of G5. "A New Generation" had its main villain be Sprout, Hitch's deputy who crowned himself emperor of Maretime Bay in Hitch's absence. As I said in my re-review of the movie, Sprout was originally going to be Sunny's boss and was going to have her kicked out of Maretime Bay in an earlier draft involving lighthouses all across Equestria. Pipp was also meant to be an antagonist originally, with Hitch joining the heist planned by Sunny, Izzy, and Zipp. Perhaps to salvage those plans, Queen Haven was introduced, but she and Alphabittle honestly felt more like glorified roadblocks than actual antagonists. Pipp joined our heroes, but her contributions were completely glossed over and she became dead weight. And Sprout, he was treated in-universe as a joke even when they wanted us to take him seriously. The only one who felt like a credible antagonist was Phyilis, and ultimately she got pushed aside when Sprout became the main antagonist. From there, Phyilis only got a non-speaking cameo in one episode of "Make Your Mark" and one episode of "Tell Your Tale" to appear in. Sprout never appeared in "Tell Your Tale", but got a few cameos in "Make Your Mark" as well as being the focus of the first tie in shovelware game that more or less served as his redemption arc. The first special gave us Posey, who was supposed to be a strawman complaining about how earth ponies didn't have magic and that magic was nothing but trouble. But when "Tell Your Tale" and even "Make Your Mark" showed that Sunny and Hitch were not willing to address the problem with magic causing trouble, on top of showing Posey being harrassed multiple times just for not wanting to hang out with the mane five, it turned her into a Chancellor Neighsay that she ended up being proven right. And then we have Opaline Arcana, who was an absolute joke that did nothing at all until Chapter 4 of "Make Your Mark". And then went back to doing nothing at all in Chapter 5, before suddenly becoming the end game level threat in Chapter 6, only to be defeated anti-climatically. They even showed that the she didn't abduct Misty as a child, Misty just happened to end up in Opaline's care by completely accident, and somehow Opaline never erased or blocked Misty's memories, yet Misty stayed with Opaline despite Opaline being abusive and manipulative in the worst way possible. They couldn't even stick to a good backstory for her: First they said she was an alicorn at the same time as Celestia and Luna that apparently was shunned and ignored by them, then they said she was a fire alicorn banished from Skyros and who wanted to steal all magic. And the IDW comics imply that somehow she started the problem that led to the unity crystals and to magic disappearing from Equestria all together. At no point did I ever get the impression that Opaline could've done all of that, because quite often her plans failed without the heroes even knowing she was there. Yet somehow, she actually felt like she fit in with "Tell Your Tale"'s comedic focus, because they played up pathetic and lonely she was. Yet as soon as she was defeated, they decided to throw another antagonist onto us in the form of Allura, a magical snow leopard, and her rabbit sidekick Twitch. Allura at least felt like a competent threat in her debut, if they had made her the one responsible for G4 becoming G5 I might have had an easier time believing that. But after "Secrets of Starlight", "Tell Your Tale" brought her in and did nothing of substance with her, making her repeat the same mistakes as Opaline in that she just lay around and complained. Aside from once when she sent Twitch to spy on the ponies, and once when she briefly tried to manipulate Izzy, she stopped being a threat. Then, when at last she did face the ponies again, they tried to pull a Dr. Caballeron/Ahuziotl and claim that she wasn't really evil (despite brainwashing ponies and trying to assert her authority over them), just misunderstood, even down to her being separated from her brother entirely by accident. And that's it, that's how her story ended. There were supposedly plans to do more with Opaline and Allura related to Skyros, but we'll sadly never know if those plans would've fixed the villains, or if it would've just been trying to put more bandages on a pile of trash (it's still going to stink even if you patch it up).
2. Bland and/or Regressive Characterization
Probably the biggest thing FiM had going for it and why it proved so popular was because it had a diverse cast of characters from different walks of life, completely with different personalities and character quirks. That meant that there were a variety of situations you could write them into, and we could watch them grow and change over time. Granted, not all of the developments were necessarily for the better, some got more focus than others (Applejack in particular faded more and more into the background over time, and many were not enthusiastic about Starlight joining the mane cast or Fluttershy having to seemingly learn the same lesson about standing up for herself time after time), and you can argue that later seasons shifting the focus more to secondary characters was because the mane six/seven/eight were stagnating or not developing as much as they used to. But it was still there. Sadly, it seems that wasn't a priority when it came to our main characters for G5. Misty seems to be the one positive stand out, and even she started to get stagnate by the end of "Tell Your Tale", getting multiple episodes in a row where it was all about her feeling sorry for herself and refusing to talk to her friends about it. As for the other characters, well we can leave out Comet who unfortunately joined too late to be developed properly (some speculate that a lot of the Misty focus in "Tell Your Tale"'s second season was originally planned for Comet), the most we got was him joining Sunny's smoothie cart and getting more in touch with his magic (and one joke implying that he might not be used to Maretime Bay's warmer climate). Let's start with Pipp Petals, the weak link in the chain, the odd one out. She started out as a social media pop star and influencer, addicted to the spotlight. And did she get any sort of development beyond that? Not really, a little bit of nibbling around the edges, such as revealing that she's a phone addict, or revealing that she likes spooky stuff. And there were two episodes in Chapter 5 of "Make Your Mark" that had her learn how to do something without her phone, and had her learn about how social media can be a bad thing. But that's about it, she remained at best a two dimensional character, someone who it feels was made solely to be a "How do you do, fellow kids?" kind of character. Then there's Zipp Storm, who initially seemed to be the one character the writers cared about. She started off as a rebellious Disney princess and a butch tomboy character, but thankfully nowhere near as abrassive and blunt as Rainbow Dash. They made her the one who was always asking questions and wanting to know more, which wasn't a bad trait, until she was the only one who ever seemed to notice an obvious problem. "Make Your Mark" hinted at her someday taking over the throne from Queen Haven and learning what it means to be a leader. But that all got thrown out the window before long, focusing entirely on her being a detective. And even that saw her stagnate by the end: Because her style of detective was to just blatantly interrogate anyone she could, to the point where she had to be told to stop trying to press Misty for more details that she clearly couldn't remember. It got to the point where, as one reviewer put it, Zipp was basically playing detective rather than being a detective. In essence, being a little kid playing games and running away from her responsibilities, and there's no equivalent to The Lion King where she grows up and learns that life isn't all fun and games. Up next is Izzy Moonbow, who got only two focus episodes in "Make Your Mark" (and debateably was the focus to an extent in both "Bridlewoodstock" and "Winter Wishday"). She had it rough from the get go, because her new VA was the one change that stood out even when the others were all trying to emulate the takes from "A New Generation". It wasn't so bad, it just reeked of being too squeaky sometimes, and whenever she tried to get angry or otherwise low it often came across as raspy and drunk. They did indirectly regress her, because of her crafting skills. In "A New Generation", Izzy could craft a fake crown and fake unicorn horns, showing that her crafting skills were very highly detailed. But in "Make Your Mark" and "Tell Your Tale", her crafting was reduced to a childish level of arts and crafts: Aside from her scooter, it was stuff like necklaces or bracelets, or even just making an imaginary friend. Still, it's better than what did "Tell Your Tale" did, only once or twice did "Make Your Mark" seem to make Izzy act needlessly stupid. "Tell Your Tale", though, within the first four episodes made her into a horrible roommate for Sunny, and somepony who went on to completely disrupt and ruin other ponies lives because "Lol, random", making her act like a flanderized Pinkie Pie. They even made an entire episode out of her dumpster diving, and it's sad when that of all things ended up being one of her better portrayals. If you thought Izzy had it bad though, oh just wait 'til you see what they did to Hitch. I believe the term "Look how they masscared my boy!" applies here. Hitch in "A New Generation" was competent, the embodiment of lawful good to Sunny's chaotic good, he was good at his job and was unquestionably the most emotionally mature of the group. He could be a little big egotistical at times, but never to the point where it would interfere with his job as sheriff. And most importantly of all, he could come to realize he was wrong, even if it took time for his pride to accept that. In contrast, both "Make Your Mark" and "Tell Your Tale" turned Hitch into a completely different character: Somepony who shys away from conflict, somepony who becomes a control freak as soon as something he can't control shows up, and somepony who panicks at the slightest sign of danger. It makes you wonder how he never burned down his office while trying to make breakfast, he was that clumsy and incompetent. And it's clear that they introduced Sparky and made Hitch his dragon dad solely so they could warp Hitch's character to make him more motherly, more feminine, as if the very idea of having a male character act like a male character was something to be shunned. It wouldn't be so bad if not for the fact that Hitch's entire character basically boiled down to Sparky from the moment Sparky showed up, and Sparky was in and of himself not a good character. He was just there to be cute, and then for a while in "Tell Your Tale" to shoehorn in toilet humor (to the point where he literally farted in Misty's face). Last and ultimately least is Sunny, our intended main character. She was already problematic in "A New Generation" given that she never had to confront her own prejudicies or beliefs about pegasi and unicorns, and suffered heavily from "Main Character Syndrome" to the detriement of everyone else. But at least that was a character that could hopefully be built upon and improved. Alas, "Tell Your Tale" waited until a ways into its run to even give her a focus episode, and "Make Your Mark" opted to strip away all of her unique characteristics in favor of focusing entirely on two things: Her alicorn status, and her smoothie cart, the latter of which was such a small part of her character in "A New Generation" that it wasn't even worth mentioning. Yet after just one episode, they gave up on Sunny's alicorn state and said it was just something she turned into when she got really happy (was that really the best they could do?), and from then on it was her smoothie cart until Chapter 6 of "Make Your Mark" suddenly remembered that she was supposed to be the main character: Not Misty, or Sparky, or Zipp, or anyone else. They did try to make a story arc of her alicorn powers in Chapter 4 of "Make Your Mark", but it always boiled down to the same formula: Sunny has these doubts, she expresses these doubts, she talks to somepony, the doubts clear up, rinse and repeat. It's as if they feared having a character who was a self described "activist" was a bad idea, but "Ali-Conned" literally demonstrated a better way to use that "activist" label, turning her into a community activist instead of a political activist. I don't know why they walked away from that, or why they never bothered bringing up Argyle aside from one or two cameos, even though you'd think his death would have impacted Sunny somehow. There's speculation that Sunny's mom was going to be tied to Skyros in a planned second season of "Make Your Mark", but given that they didn't even come up with a name for said mother, it seems they didn't get far in the planning stage before the rug was pulled out from under them. Long story short, every main character basically stagnated and/or regressed by the end.
1. Executive Meddling/Corporate Greed
This is on the top for a reason: It more or less explains all the other decisions and problems and why they exist. Granted, some of what I'm saying is something I only heard about from one YouTube channel, which in turn got their information from a Discord channel. I have no way of knowing how reliable that information is. All I can say for sure is that G5 originally began life under then Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner, who only stepped away in 2020 due to health issues (and ultimately died in 2021 a few weeks after "A New Generation" was released on Netflix). Brian originally wanted to continue FiM directly and explore three locations: Ponyville, Cloudsdale, and the Everfree Forest (it's easy to see how they evolved into Maretime Bay, Zephyr Heights, and Bridlewood respectively). And he was at least at the helm for "A New Generation" and "Make You Mark" during their early stages of development. It's not clear if "A New Generation"'s story changed as a result of Brian stepping aside, or if Brian himself didn't like the original planned draft involving lighthouses all across Equestria. He was responsible for recruiting Boulder Media to work on "A New Generation", even though they had never before done a CGI cartoon. But at some point after Brian stepped aside, a new CEO took over with the mentality that Hasbro is just a toy company, and shouldn't be spending money on animated properties or other products (hence why Hasbro is supposedly in danger of having the D&D license be bought out from them). To that end, he arranged for Netflix to pick up 100% of the costs of "A New Generation", and oversaw the decision to slash the budget for "Make Your Mark". Then, with that cut, the CEO reached out to Atomic Cartoons and bought them outright so that they could produce "Tell Your Tale" by recycling assets from Boulder Media's originally planned 2D G5 show. There was also apparently a lot of back and forth from the writers of "Make Your Mark" where they supposedly wanted to do more, but kept having their scripts be dummed down because they were told the show was just for kids. And "Make Your Mark" was written with the intention that it would get a second season right from the get go. And apparently, Netflix and not Hasbro had "Make Your Mark" cancelled, fed up with the low quality. As for "Tell Your Tale", well, after all that it turns out that Hasbro lost money on its purchase of Atomic Cartoons, and had to sell it off for less than what they paid to acquire it. So "Tell Your Tale" being cancelled may have been either Hasbro cutting their losses, or trying to use the cancellation as a tax write off ala Discovery Max. So in the end, the changing of the guard, and the mind boggling stupidity from the higher ups at Hasbro doomed any chance G5 might have had. It even seems reasonable to conclude that they rightfully feared a G5 that wouldn't be tied to G4, even though G5's ties to G4 were artifical.
Well, there you have it.
Nice list. And I have to agree with you on the corporate greed. The higher ups think they know all, but end up killing their own projects in the process.
Boulder Media didn't produce Make Your Mark, that was Atomic Cartoons. By that point, Hasbro already sold off Boulder Media.
Interestingly, I have see people bring up how Hasbro restructuring may have impacted production. It is said the initial plan was for A New Generation to be a theatrical release in 2020 and have the Gen 5 TV show be 2D animated by Boulder Media, but that fell apart due to COVID-19 happening and leading A New Generation to be released on Netflix a year later.
That in turn led Netflix to gain a co-producing role in the Gen 5 TV show instead of being on Discovery Family as planned.
Hasbro selling Boulder Media and Entertainment One during production of Gen 5 to recoup money they lost during COVID-19 meant the Gen 5 TV show had to restart production from scratch with a new crew at the cheaper Atomic Cartoons with 3D (by reusing assets from A New Generation movie), leading to problems with having to produce the new show on a more rushed form to reach their deadline.
5819722 I can't foresee G5's problems being better if it had been on Discovery Family. Netflix wouldn't have been a bad choice if Hasbro had been willing to commit to it wholeheartedly, or if they'd just gone the Disney route and made their own streaming service.
I can at least make an excuse for Allura in that she was just desperate to get home and never actually meant to hurt anyone. After all, people will often do evil or morally questionable things out of desperation, hence why she enslaved the Auroricorns. Don't forget she spent most of her life being treated as a monster, so she felt like she couldn't trust anyone and saw ponies as no exception.
5820035 Maybe, but that still doesn't justify jumping to conclusions or manipulating every pony she came across without even bothering to state her case. She obviously trusted Twitch enough to let him stay with her, so if she could extend that kindness to him she should've been able to extend it to others. Nothing in her backstory suggested that ponies did anything to her or her brother at any point, and that her separation was entirely accidental.
Also compare G5 getting shovelware games to PAW Patrol getting a kart racer that its adult fans can also enjoy.
5820042
Fair point, but some people do form genuine bonds with or are nicer to some people than they are with others. For all we know, Allura could've tried to get rid of Twitch once she saved him, but he kept coming back to her and she let him stay, and/or was the first creature who didn't see her as a monster.
Do you think you’ll ever do a What If series covering G5?
5821304 Maybe someday, but probably not anytime in the next five years.