Heads up + discussion · 12:06pm Feb 3rd, 2014
Yeeeeeah, soooooooooooo... I'm kinda slow. I'll admit it's been a while since the last chapter of Ponyville Paintball. For anyone wondering, I'm still working on it, no question about that... It's just that a lot of IRL stuff popped up at once (I'm going to star in a short movie 
) and I've had little time to write these days. But I'm working on it. Right now Chapter 11 is a little over 5,000 words, and it's only halfway done, so I think it just might hit the 10,000 word mark. The chapter after that is going to be huge as well, a lot of stuff happens in that one... But I won't spoil anything 
In the meantime, there's something I've been wondering about the show in itself, and that I'd like to discuss with some of you. I want to know how many people agree with me on the following idea:
Season 4 kinda sucks.
I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not terrible or anything. The quality of it all is actually quite good, still good enough for a 20-year-old guy like me to enjoy it. But as the episodes of season 4 pile up and as I go through each of them every week thinking "nyeah it was alright," I realize that it doesn't have that thing that originally made me fall in love with the show. You know, that... that magic that made me grin without realizing it, that made me forget it was a children's cartoon entirely, and that left me at the end of every episode with a pleasant sense of when you know what you've just enjoyed is made from the heart for the sake of quality.
Season 4 doesn't have that. I don't know if it's because I'm getting used to it, but it doesn't have that touch. I think what truly ruins it is that it seems that in every episode now the writers want to cram in as many gimmicks to catch the eye as possible. Some call it pandering or fan-service, and I don't know if it's exactly that but in any case it seems less an overall quality episode and more and more like 20 minutes of half-baked jokes piled one on top of each other with little coherence or purpose.
For example, let's make a comparison: Winter Wrap-Up is an impressive piece of art. Why? Because it was a simple, lovely story about how time changes and we must go along with it, as well as a lesson on how we must find what it is we're good at and use it to help others to go along with time. If you ask me, teaching that to children through a cartoon medium is worth tipping your hat off to even if you're not wearing a hat. It was simple, sweet, well-executed, the flow of the episode was absolutely seamless as Twilight goes to all of her friends one by one before doing her own part in the end, and of course, it had that song that I'm not even going to remind you of how cool it is. What made this episode great is what made the greatness of the entire two first seasons (season 3 was alright in my opinion, but not as good): it was a solid construct of good ol' fashion story-telling, and it stayed consistent in that respect during the entire 22 minutes and didn' it just melt ya heart now :)
This is what is completely lacking in season 4. If you take any other episode, it's just joke over stuff over brony references in every direction. "Oh my god, Look at Discord, he's back at being completely quirky and oh my god look he's blue lol look at him fake being sick, he's so silly and look now he's Raoul Duke, and then he's Draco, and look at all the wacky things he can sing abou--"
Yes. Yes. But where's the episode??
Where's the story? Where's the warm fuzzy core wrapped in cuteness? Where's the depth of character? Where's the moral ground that doesn't make it all fluff?
"We replaced it with more YEEEEAAAAAH!"
Goddammit, as if that wasn't annoying enough the first time. Bulk Biceps... *shudder*
The same goes for every other obvious brony, movie or pop culture reference. And don't even get me started on Derpy... I adore her, like any other brony. But I truly believe that, controversy or not, they should have stopped referencing her after the "I just don't know what went wrong" episode. It was plenty enough as it was, because what makes Derpy's strength is that she's a background pony who appears extremely little and always in a subtle manner.
Not as in "hey looks like they need a new pegasus teammate and OMG IT'S DERPY!! LOOK!! IT'S YOUR IDOL!! ISN'T THAT INGENIOUS ON OUR PART??? LOOOOOOOOOL!"
Enough already!
This is what's truly lacking in season 4 (I know I only used a couple of episodes as an example, but in my opinion it applies to the season as a whole. For example, the family message in Pinkie Apple Pie could have been great if it hadn't been ruined by all the corny antics on all the characters' parts. Besides, the fact that Pinkie just randomly starts believing she and Applejack are related is odd, especially with the whole Apple family just going along with it without even questioning it once). The elements that make the foundation of these episodes are flimsy and rely on brony-viewership rather than on what makes a story good. I think maybe it was when the writers and show producers realized the scope of the brony culture that the show began to decline, because they started focusing on how they could appeal to us, thereby making a fatal mistake in changing their formula because the formula was already perfect as it was. So to whoever captains this ship, I say this: Less focusing on how you can get more likes on My Little Brony and more focusing on how you can make friendship magic.
But anyway, that's just my opinion. I wanna know what you think. Drop a comment maybe?
Personally I like season 4, but honestly, what first got me into FiM is the quality of the animation and voice acting. Since those are only getting better, I can't complain...
I've never found the show exceptional as far as storytelling is concerned. Take the first double episode: everything is incredibly predictable. The main characters are introduced one after another, then show their own qualities one after another, then team up to defeat the boss... There's nothing bad about it, the characters work and there aren't any big plot holes or anything, but you can tell where the story's going all along. That's how I'd describe most of the storytelling: effective but predictable. Surprises happen, but they're rare.
In fact, season 4 has me intrigued with that whole plot about the replacement for the elements of harmony. There wasn't a whole lot of continuity between episodes in the earlier seasons and I'm curious to see what will come out of this. But mostly, I watch FiM for the cute ponies and humor, so basically I find this season excellent.
Les goûts et les couleurs...